Pressing Concerns is back after a brief hiatus. Today, we hit on new records from Vintage Crop, Flowertown, Options, and Fiver.
If you’re still looking for more new music, you can browse previous editions of Pressing Concerns or visit the site directory.
Vintage Crop – Kibitzer
Release date: June 24th Record label: Anti Fade/Upset the Rhythm/Weather Vane Genre: Post-punk, garage rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Drafted
Geelong, Australia’s Vintage Crop have been tearing through their mix of ripping garage rock and talky post-punk since 2017, with vocalist Jack Cherry frenetically but smartly caricaturizing mundanity and corporate nonsense in releases like 2019’s Company Man EP and 2020’s Serve to Serve Again (one of Rosy Overdrive’s favorite records of that year). Their third full-length, June’s Kibitzer, delivers on both fronts, with the band barreling through hooky but muscular pieces of egg punk over top of confident-as-ever Cherry observations.
“It’s me, I’m the Duke / It’s me, it’s not a joke,” Cherry crowns himself in “The Duke”, which adds keyboard accents to push the song into synthpunk territory, even as it forms part of an opening garage rock salvo along with the show business-mining “Casting Calls” and the stomping “Double Slants”. Elsewhere on Kibitzer, Vintage Crop get their Naked Raygun on with the military-minded “Drafted” and “The Bloody War”—the former features insistent bass and scribbled guitar for instant gratification, the latter giving Cherry’s close-to-spoken vocals space to reverberate. Kibitzer works as well as it does because of how well-oiled the band sounds on these songs—particularly on rhythm-forward constructions like “Under Offer” and “Hold the Line”, kibitzing never sounded so good. (Bandcamp link)
Flowertown – Half Yesterday
Release date: July 8th Record label: Mt. St. Mtn./Paisley Shirt Genre: Jangle pop, dream pop, slowcore Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital Pull track: The Intersection
Flowertown are a dreamy and leisurely San Francisco duo made up of Karina Gill (of Cindy) and Michael Ramos (of Tony Jay, whose Hey There Flower just got reissued by Mt. St. Mtn. as well). Although Gill and Ramos have only been making music together since 2020, Half Yesterday is their fourth record together, following two EPs (later compiled together) in their first year as a band and 2021’s Time Trials. Time Trials already landed squarely on the quiet and slow end of guitar pop, and with Half Yesterday, Flowertown sound even more determined to let these songs take their time.
Opening track “Buttercream” has a bit of a propulsive drumbeat, even as the warm guitar reverb and Ramos’ whispered vocals are the most prominent aspects of the song, while the title track casually adds a lilting organ tone into the mix. Elsewhere on Half Yesterday, the duo approach the starkness of Tony Jay by offering up little more than electric guitar and vocal trade-offs, like in “The Evergiven” and the pin-drop closing track “Gaper’s Delay”. Like a lot of the best slowcore, Half Yesterday’s appeal isn’t so much in the technical playing (the best song, “The Intersection”, features simple chord changes and a very basic drumbeat), but in how Flowertown present and put together their building blocks. (Bandcamp link)
Options – Swimming Feeling
Release date: July 1st Record label: Self-released Genre: Slowcore, emo-indie-rock Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Toast
In addition to being one of the more accomplished recording engineers in recent memory and the new drummer for Mister Goblin, Chicago’s Seth Engel is fairly prolific on his own as Options. Swimming Feeling is at least his eighth record under the name, and it’s a strong entry into an already-impressive body of work. On the whole, I would put Swimming Feeling closer to the chilly, serious indie rock of 2020’s twin Options releases of Wind’s Gonna Blow and Window’s Open and further from the playful bedroom pop of 2021’s On the Draw, but there’s elements of that one here too, as well as songs that don’t fit neatly into either of those two camps.
Swimming Feeling’s opening track, “Toast”, has an alt-rock punchiness to it, chopping through a solid melody from Engel. Not long after, “The Bend” starts in what has become a familiar way for Engel—a downbeat power chord stomp. The middle of the record finds Options rocking in a 90s indie rock way not unlike Mister Goblin’s invigorated sound on earlier-this-year’s Bunny, with the stretch from “Take Time” to “Take It Tough” sounding particularly electric. Like most Options records, Swimming Feeling is a subtle album, but the distinguishing touches—like, say, the double-tracked vocals and two seconds of AutoTune in “Breaker”—reveal themselves. (Bandcamp link)
Fiver – Soundtrack to a More Radiant Sphere: The Joe Wallace Mixtape
Release date: July 8th Record label: You’ve Changed Genre: Folk Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Rosemary & Rue
Joe Wallace was a Cold War-era “Communist poet, activist, and Canadian political prisoner”, as well as the subject of A More Radiant Sphere, a documentary film by Sara Wylie. Simone Schimdt, who makes versitile folk-based music as Fiver, is an inspired choice to soundtrack Wallace’s life story. The first five songs on Soundtrack to a More Radiant Sphere are comprised of Wallace’s poems set to music by Schmidt, and they are given as much care and dressing as Fiver’s wholly original songs. While “Song of the Mournful Millionaire” gets more or less a straight protest folk reading, Schmidt isn’t content to just adapt Wallace’s poems in this fashion.
“Sacco & Vanzetti” and “Rosemary & Rue”, for instance, prominently feature violin courtesy of John Showman, and opening track “Your Arm Is Strong Enough” is marked by leisurely piano playing from Nick Dourado. The full range of Schmidt and her collaborators is even more apparent in the instrumental second half of Soundtrack to a More Radiant Sphere, which hops from Nathan Doucet’s percussion-led “Cargo of Hollywood Stars”, to the ambient “If It Does Spread” to the full-sounding “Wallace Goes to Russia”. Even without words, Fiver find ways to communicate in these songs as well, such as the music callback to “Song of the Mournful Millionaire” in the piano of “Stuff My Vaults”. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to the June 2022 Rosy Overdrive playlist! There are many good songs from the past month on here, as well as some songs not from 2022 that are still good and worth your time. You’ll see!
ME REX, Motherhood, and Wire get two songs on this playlist. Guided by Voices get three (I’m back on my bullshit).
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal, BNDCMPR. Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one.
“Ants”, Long Neck From Soft Animal (2022, Plastic Miracles/Specialist Subject)
The appropriately-titled Soft Animal is the fourth Long Neck album, and it finds Lily Mastrodimos backing away from the rockier elements of 2018’s Will This Do? and 2020’s World’s Strongest Dog (which was one of my favorite albums of that year) to lean on acoustic and folkier material. This side of Long Neck has always been there, and songs like “Ants” prove that Mastrodimos is no less effective with it. Mastrodimos harmonizes and duets with herself as her acoustic guitar (the only other accompaniment on the song) soundtracks the ticking away of months and seasons.
“The Perfect Crime”, Dazy From MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD: The First 24 Songs (2021, Convulse)
Zipping back to 2021 for a moment, I can still confirm that Dazy’s MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD is as fresh and exhilarating as I (and surely the rest of you) remember it. The twenty-four-song compilation (one of my favorites of last year) begins with “The Perfect Crime”, which is the “perfect” introduction to James Goodson’s incredibly captivating mix of mid 90s pop-punk/power pop fascination with late 80s/early 90s drum-machine-aided dance-friendly noise pop (whew!). I’ve talked about several songs from MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD on here before; the fact that I am only now just getting to this one is a testament to the comp’s overall quality.
“Lizard on the Red Brick Wall”, Guided by Voices From Tremblers and Goggles by Rank (2022, GBV, Inc.)
Tremblers and Goggles by Rank is the fourteenth Guided by Voices album since Robert Pollard re-revived the name in 2016, and it’s the third in a row to point in the direction of more focused, longer, and denser songs. Tremblers only has ten tracks (a GBV first), meaning several of them stretch into levels rarely seen on their records. Album opener “Lizard on the Red Brick Wall” is a “mere” four and a half minutes—it’s meaty, it’s explosive, it’s incredibly catchy, it’s an instant classic.
“Crawly I” and “Crawly II”, Motherhood From Winded (2022, Forward Music Group)
Winded, the latest record from New Brunswick’s Motherhood, roars out of the gate with the opening duo of “Crawly I” and “Crawly II”. Both “Crawly”s are revved-up post-punk garage numbers, although they accomplish their wild energy in different ways—the formers speeds along at a breakneck pace, while the latter stomps around intensely. Guitarist/vocalist Brydon Crain adopts a nervous reporter tone in the first “Crawly”, and a deranged bark in the latter. Read more about Winded here.
“Pledge Drive”, Cheekface (2022)
The latest Cheekface song is pretty much everything one could want in a Cheekface song—the band cites Television as an inspiration for “Pledge Drive”, and I can hear it, but mostly it just sounds like Cheekface and only Cheekface, which is a good thing. The title line (“I called the pledge drive / I got the suicide hotline”) is merely one of several lines delivered by Greg Katz that could have only been delivered by him, and the surprise acoustic guitar in the pre-chorus sounds very cool.
“Toilet of Venus”, ME REX From Plesiosaur (2022, Big Scary Monsters)
I like ME REX—I thought their Megabear LP from last year was a successful experiment of a release, and I usually find something to enjoy on the band’s constant output of EPs. Their latest one, the four-song (as always) Plesiosaur, is I think the strongest of them yet, and “Toilet of Venus” is the band’s greatest song thus far. Myles McCabe’s vocals are passionate and frantic, rushing to get out everything he wants to say in classic ME REX fashion, but the rest of the band basically explode alongside him in what feels like a big step forward of a moment.
“Con Art”, Smart Went Crazy From Con Art (1997, Dischord)
I’m sure several of you know about the recent health problems of Chad Clark (currently of Beauty Pill, formerly of Smart Went Crazy), and Rosy Overdrive certainly wishes him well and hopes with him that the most harrowing moments are now in the past. I’d be revisiting Con Art even if Clark wasn’t in my thoughts recently—I do this from time to time, because it rules. The record’s title track isn’t primarily sung by Clark—rather, it’s a spotlight moment for cellist Hilary Soldati, who jumps between stoicism and a slight grin to deliver the song’s blunt line after blunt line. Clark does get to echo Soldati toward the end of the song (the particularly creepy “If you’re such a….such a badass” part).
“Sirens and Thunder”, Kasey Anderson and the Honkies From Heart of a Dog (2011, Red River)
An older song I recently rediscovered for the first time in nearly a decade, “Sirens and Thunder” is country rock at its populist best. Kasey Anderson affects his best Steve Earle for the song’s roughly familiar vocals, the guitar parts (both the revved-up rhythmic parts and the absolutely explosive lead parts in between the verses) are just as memorable, and the absolute wrecking ball of a chorus puts the whole thing into classic territory. It doesn’t even need the kicker of the final few lines (“It ended with sirens and thunder, and nobody’s bed to crawl under / We were dogs howling back at each other and it was getting loud”) to do it.
“The New Booze”, This Is Lorelei From This Is Lorelei 1 (2022)
When This Is Lorelei’s Nate Amos released Falls Like Water Falls (one of my favorite albums of 2022 so far) in February, he alluded to his new sobriety in its creation. This Is Lorelei’s latest single, “The New Booze”, seems to be explicitly about this. From the cheery “pop off” double-meaning opening, Amos continually references cola (the titular new booze) as he wades through a nearly five-minute three-chord pop song about missing someone (in a rather ambiguous way) that somehow makes an Adam Levine/Avril Lavigne/Richard D. James-referencing chorus work.
“Summer to Fall”, Chronophage From Chronophage (2022, Post Present Medium)
The latest record from Austin’s Chronophage is an even-split mix of jangle pop and post-punk (really, one of the best genre combinations out there). Single “Summer to Fall” is, as its breezy title implies, one of the more openly poppy moments on Chronophage, with singer Sarah Beames’ grounded vocals anchoring a mostly simple but effective song foundation—there’s something that sounds like a buried roller-rink organ in the chorus, which works very well.
“Oh No Not So (Save the Bullet) [4th Demo]”, Wire From Not About to Die (Studio Demos 1977-1978) (2022, Pinkflag)
The least surprising revelation of the June playlist is that I’m quite into the formal release of Not About to Die (Studio Demos 1977-1978), a widely-bootlegged collection of early Wire recordings that serves as a wonderful companion to (and, perhaps, in its own way, equal of) the band’s first three records. The first half of Not About to Die in particular is Wire as a curious punk band, bashing out songs that would either mutate on later recordings or become forgotten. “Oh No Not So (Save the Bullet)” is a brief shot of poppy punk that could’ve been something big, but it works just fine in its “demo” form here as well.
“Mulholland Dr.”, Bartees Strange From Farm to Table (2022, 4AD)
Parts of Bartees Strange’s sophomore record, Farm to Table, are very good—and “Mulholland Dr.” by itself is enough to make the occasional bumpy rest of the album worth it to me. Unlike the face-slapping clear highlight from 2020’s (Rosy Overdrive-approved) Live Forever, “Boomer”, “Mulholland Dr.” represents a more subtle merging of Strange’s pop/R&B-influences with his beloved emo and stately National-inspired indie rock. The soaring chorus (“I don’t believe in the bullshit…”) is too slick for the DIY/underground world from which Strange emerged, but it makes sense and sounds completely in line with the best of Bartees’ brief but already memorable solo career.
“Middle of a Cloud”, Diners From Four Wheels and the Truth (2022, Lauren)
Four Wheels and the Truth is a gleeful-sounding pop rock record that is right up the alley of anyone who enjoys groups like Russel the Leaf and Cool Original, and the brief but sweet “Middle of a Cloud” couldn’t present the album’s charms any clearer. Blue Broderick’s lyrics and delivery are both subtle enough to mirror the track’s pop-song-power-chord progression—just try to get “Middle of a Cloud” out of your head.
“I Just Want to Touch You”, Utopia From Deface the Music (1980, Bearsville/Rhino)
So, Deface the Music is Todd Rundgren (under the banner of his band, Utopia) doing his best Beatles impression for an entire record’s length. Utopia do it all—psychedelia, orchestral, folk rock—but opening track “I Just Want to Touch You” is Rundgren and crew’s most obvious attempt to recreate the Beatles’ early-sixties crowd-pleasing pop rock. And it’s quite successful—Utopia (at this point a far cry away from their prog-rock roots) throws in handclaps, harmonicas, bouncy bass guitar, all to make “I Just Want to Touch You” land as strongly as possible.
“Mono Retriever”, Dummy From Mono Retriever (2022, Sub Pop)
The first new music from Dummy following their debut full-length record, last year’s Mandatory Enjoyment, consists of two songs for Sub Pop’s Singles Club. Both of the tracks on Mono Retriever are vintage-sounding Dummy; neither would have been out of place on Mandatory Enjoyment, but they both carve out identities of their own. B-Side “Pepsi Vacuum” is the headier one, the one that’s several sounds stitched together to form a single giant cloud overhead, while “Mono Retriever” is the short and punchy one. If you liked the more Stereolab-y moments on their last record, it hits the same marks as those, but it also feels even more revved-up than pretty much anything off of Mandatory Enjoyment.
“Thick and Thin”, Guided by Voices From Suitcase 4: Captain Kangaroo Won the War (2016, GBV Inc.)
Songs like “Thick and Thin” are why people like me care about Guided by Voices and Robert Pollard to the degree that I do. It’s why Pollard can release a fourth 100-song “Suitcase” compilation and still garner significant interest around it. Because “Thick and Thin” rules. It’s a perfect lost 60s pop-rock sounding nugget with the kind of “upbeat sad” Pollard vocal he did a lot in his early recordings. According to GBVDB, it was recorded in 1983—this song sat unused and unheard on some tape for over thirty years, which is nuts.
“Drafted”, Vintage Crop From Kibitzer (2022, Weather Vane/Anti Fade/Upset the Rhythm)
Australian post-punk/garage rock experts Vintage Crop have delivered another hit with their fourth record, Kibitzer, and second-half highlight “Drafted” is pretty much everything you’d want in a Vintage Crop song. The bass is frantic and busy pretty much entirely throughout, the guitar barrels through your typical four chords gleefully, and the talk-singing in the verses gives away to, uh, a different kind of talk-singing in the chorus that fits the song perfectly. I’ll have more to say about Kibitzer soon-ish.
“Mother’s Records”, Katie Bejsiuk From The Woman on the Moon (2022, Double Double Whammy)
Katie Bejsiuk has been operating on her own basically ever since she ended her curiously-named but very good Free Cake for Every Creature project in 2019, so I’d figured we’d get an album under her name for a while now. The Woman on the Moon picks up where the last Free Cake album, 2018’s underappreciated The Bluest Star, left off, with opening track “Mother’s Records” relying on Bejsiuk’s quietly passionate voice and minimally-accompanied acoustic guitar strums. The rest of The Woman on the Moon delves a little further into how a Katie Bejsiuk record differs from a Free Cake for Every Creature record, but here, it’s just good to hear her voice again.
“Soft”, Camp Trash From The Long Way, the Slow Way (2022, Count Your Lucky Stars)
I didn’t even talk about “Soft” when I wrote about The Long Way, the Slow Way for its release week; the debut record from Florida’s Camp Trash just had too many contenders of pop songs. Let’s not overlook it here, though: it’s a brilliant second-side shiner, jumping from section to section deftly: the tension-building intro, the well-oiled, percussion-first “main bit”, and the big-finish that lets the emo side of Camp Trash out for a bit. Read more about The Long Way, the Slow Way here.
“Alive Twice”, Friendship From Love the Stranger (2022, Merge)
The latest single from Philadelphia’s Friendship (the third from their upcoming Love the Stranger) is the first one that really harkens back to the band’s “ambient country” roots. In fact, it might even earn that descriptor more than 2017’s Fender Rhodes-and-drum machine-aided Shock Out of Season—lead vocalist Dan Wriggins sings accompanied by a simple synth part that comes and goes throughout the song, and virtually nothing else. It works.
“Jangle Manifesto”, Nana Grizol From South Somewhere Else (2020, Arrowhawk/Don Giovanni)
Going back a couple of years to 2020 and the most recent (very good) Nana Grizol record, the provocatively yet appropriately-titled “Jangle Manifesto” is up there with the title track for providing the heart of South Somewhere Else. “If there was something called ‘my country’ / It’s not a thing that I would save,” begins Theo Hilton after a typical Elephant Six horn intro, and then continues making quick work of rejecting several tenets of American culture that in a better world (not this one) would be rejected by all out of hand.
“Everybody’s Birthday”, Frank Meadows From Dead Weight (2022, Ruination)
I (and, presumably, several other Rosy Overdrive readers) know Frank Meadows as the co-head of the great Dear Life Records (MJ Lenderman, Wendy Eisenberg, Trevor Nikrant), but like theother Dear Life co-runners, Meadows makes his own music as well. Dead Weight is a compelling piano-led folk-country record that I only first heard two days ago as of writing this, but the album has already grown on me significantly. Opening track “Everybody’s Birthday” is an understated tune—or at least, it would be, if Meadows’ vocal performance (really nailing the “NYC via NC” part of his Bandcamp bio) didn’t spend the entire song subtly but evermore convincingly stealing the show.
“Leigh Can’t Leave”, DiskothiQ From Waterworld (1996, Shrimper)
Now, here’s one from the archives: DiskothiQ was a classic Inland Empire Shrimper Records band—never quite having even the limited cache that groups like Refrigerator and Nothing Painted Blue did, and is probably best remembered today as “the band Peter Hughes was in before he became the bassist for the Mountain Goats”. Still, they were quite good, and 1996’s Waterworld was the band’s greatest record. I could’ve chosen several songs from the album, but today I’m feeling the travelogue of “Leigh Can’t Leave”, which just kind of sounds like driving down the highway.
“Holding Back the Water”, Hello Whirled From Hoping for a Little More…Pizzazz (2022, Repeating Cloud)
Hoping for a Little More…Pizzazz will not be Hello Whirled’s firstrelease of 2022, but considering that it’s the project’s inaugural release with Repeating Cloud Records and will be released physically via cassette, it carries a certain weight (hence the self-deprecating title, perhaps). My favorite of the advance singles thus far has been “Holding Back the Water”, a blaring rocker featuring a high-energy chorus delivered by Ben Spizuco. I’ll have more to say about Hoping for a Little More…Pizzazz soon-ish.
“Mechanics”, The Bye Bye Blackbirds From August Lightning Complex (2022)
The Bye Bye Blackbirds is a true-believing guitar pop band led by singer/songwriter Bradley Skaught (and also featuring former Game Theory/Loud Family drummer Jozef Becker—true heads know the significance of this). By my count, August Lightning Complex is the band’s sixth album, and fans of song-first power/jangle pop in the vain of groups like The Crowd Scene could do a lot worse than to seek it out. Highlight “Mechanics” has an understated 70s power pop-ish verse groove before jumping up into a starry chorus.
“Can’t Hear the Phone”, Snow Ellet From Glory Days (2022, Wax Bodega)
“Can’t Hear the Phone” has been out for a while, but it was hearing it in the context of Snow Ellet’s recent Glory Days EP that really sold the song for me. The final track on the record, “Can’t Hear the Phone” is a two-point-five minute mix of several Snow Ellet hallmarks—the grounding drum machine, alt-rock guitar lines, just a hint of melodramatic synths, a big chorus, and lyrics that can go from zero to “thwack” in moments (“I mean, I wrote this song / I guess I write a lot,” they shrug at one point).
“Excuses”, Grass Jaw From Circles (2022, Habitforming)
“I asked you to compromise / You told me to go fuck myself,” begins “Excuses”, a highlight from Circles, the latest record from Grass Jaw. Like a lot of the record, Grass Jaw leader Brendan Kuntz sounds particularly worn-out and weary, even as Kuntz and his collaborators make the song sound full-bodied and spirited. Read more about Circles here.
“Kimberly”, Patti Smith From Horses (1975, Arista)
Part of me took perverse delight in Patti Smith being primarily “the woman from the Tom Scharpling elevator story” until this month, but I’m not one to deprive myself of good music to keep up weird quirks, and Horses, which I listened to for the first time a week or so ago, is indeed quite good. People a lot more eloquent than I have talked on length about that album, so I’ll try to keep this brief. I could’ve chosen several songs from the record for this playlist (indeed, it was almost “Free Money”), but “Kimberly” in particular plays to Smith’s strengths: the band locking into a pretty simple pop progression and letting Patti just do her thing (in this case, apparently she’s writing about her sister) over top of it.
“Jupiter Pluvius”, ME REX From Plesiosaur (2022, Big Scary Monsters)
A second highlight from Plesiosaur, which I can say by this point is pretty firmly my favorite ME REX EP thus far, single “Jupiter Pluvius” is another great example of the rest of the ME REX lineup providing the means for Myles McCabe to aggressively do his thing over tightly-constructed piano pop rock. “Jupiter Pluvius, flood me with all good shit,” pleads McCabe at the beginning of the track, and that line might be the least notable one in the opening paragraph (there’s also a bit about “catatonic monuments”, and of course “He’s one of the pantheon / He fucks like a champion”).
“Vanderbilt”, Hit From Vanderbilt/Great Conjunction (2022)
The impossibly-named Hit is led by Brooklyn’s Craig Heed, who also notably wrote an essay for Talkhouse about Brainiac around the time the group’s latest single was released. “Vanderbilt”/”Great Conjunction” is only the four-piece band’s second single, and yes, there’s a clear Brainiac influence in these two songs, but it’s not pastiche either. For one, Heed is no Tim Taylor, nor does he attempt to be –in “Vanderbilt”, his clear vocals are the calm at the center of the rest of the band’s storm, and the song also feels looser and more psychedelic than your typical Brainiac fare.
“I’m the One You Want”, Sob Stories From Fair Shakes (2022, Dandy Boy)
It’s a familiar story that hasn’t gotten old yet: Bay Area band led by a single singer-songwriter puts together a record of jangly power pop featuring several familiar faces—in this case, Joel Cusumano is the bandleader, and Rosy Overdrive readers will recognize drummer Phil Lantz (of Chime School) and Ray Seraphin (of R.E. Seraphin, who gets a co-songwriting credit). “I’m the One You Want” is not the only killer pop tune on Fair Shakes, but its classic college rock intro combined with almost Replacements-y power chord verses gives it a unique energy.
“I Can Hear It”, Editrix From Editrix II: Editrix Goes to Hell (2022, Exploding in Sound)
Editrix II: Editrix Goes to Hell (one of my favorite records of 2022 so far) feels more insular and more focused than last year’s Tell Me I’m Bad, although the band still captures the zany energy of their debut in songs like “I Can Hear It”. Guitarist Wendy Eisenberg, bassist Steve Cameron, and drummer Josh Daniel tumble through the first half of the song until pulling out of a tailspin into the triumphant, swinging alt-rock of “I Can Hear It”’s second half.
“Trying to Get Over”, The Dream Syndicate From Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions (2022, Fire)
The unexpected but rewarding revival of The Dream Syndicate over the last half-decade or so has led the flagship Paisley Underground group to some pretty out-there locations, but their latest record, Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions, falls firmly in line with the spirit of their original 1980s material. Perhaps the recent reissue of 1986’s Out of the Grey has the band back in a rollicking desert rock mood, but either way, the stomping “Trying to Get Over” charges its way into “classic Dream Syndicate song” status quite easily.
“Moving On”, Green/Blue From Paper Thin (2022, Feel It)
The modern post-punk stomp of “Moving On” doesn’t deviate from the main formula of Paper Thin, but it shines as a particular triumph of the record all the same. Jim Blaha and Annie Sparrows’ intertwined vocals are haunting, neither towering over nor being buried by the reverb and fuzz that gets expertly wielded across the music of “Moving On”. Read more about Paper Thin here.
“Baltimore Moon”, SAVAK From Human Error / Human Delight (2022, Peculiar Works)
“Baltimore Moon”, aside from merely being a highlight on Human Error / Human Delight, is also a key track in exemplifying SAVAK’s approach on their fifth record together. The song synthesizes the more straightforward and “artier” sides of SAVAK as well as any one song could. “Baltimore Moon” effectively has two back-to-back choruses—a bouncy, melodic power pop one and then a stomping post-punk one. Read more about Human Error / Human Delight here.
“Love Ain’t Polite [4th Demo]”, Wire From Not About to Die (Studio Demos 1977-1978) (2022, Pinkflag)
Another early, punk-Wire highlight from the first half of Not About to Die, the one-minute “Love Ain’t Polite” is as good and rewarding as any pop song by a 70s punk band. The Pink Flag-esque touchstones are there—the matter of fact chord changes, the animated bass, Colin Newman’s nervy yet confident vocals—and yet it’s a different path than their first proper LP entirely.
“Too Far Gone”, Young Guv From GUV IV (2022, Run for Cover)
“Too Far Gone” opens up GUV IV by announcing what the listener is in for, exactly: a mix of the straight-ahead power pop that marked the first three Young Guv records and a shimmery desert psychedelia. The song sports confident handclaps and a very catchy chorus, while Ben Cook’s vocals waver and stretch over the song’s hypnotic music. Read more about GUV IV here.
“Who Wants to Go Hunting?”, Guided by Voices From Trembles and Goggles by Rank (2022, GBV Inc.)
Another song that has been out for a while but I didn’t fully appreciate until I heard it in an album context, “Who Wants to Go Hunting?” ends Trembles and Goggles by Rank with a rarely-seen-by-Robert-Pollard-bands six minute iceberg. Although the song (originally released as a B-side to “Unproductive Funk” in May) contains proggy buildups and at least one instance of acoustic noodling, it doesn’t feel any more stitched-together or disjointed than your three-to-four minute modern Guided by Voices song: Pollard and the band just stretch out a bit more here.
“Hard Reset”, The Zells From Ant Farm (2022, Crafted Sounds)
“Hard Reset” comes at the end of Ant Farm, a frequently messy and earnest record of all the bombast 90s indie rock and punk-inspired music can provide. In context, “Hard Reset” is the “breather”, the quiet and meditative closer to the louder songs that came before it, but the song’s shrug-and-grin mid-tempo pop rock works just fine on its own. Bassist/singer Roman Benty gives a sneakily-powerful vocal performance over a straightforward instrumental—by the time the final “It was only just to show me she don’t owe me anything” comes around, the only appropriate response is “ah, yes, of course she don’t”.
This week’s Pressing Concerns looks at new albums from Camp Trash, Flamingo Rodeo, and Hurry Up, and a new EP from Careen. Good records!
If you’re still looking for more new music, you can browse previous editions of Pressing Concerns or visit the site directory.
Camp Trash – The Long Way, The Slow Way
Release date: July 1st Record label: Count Your Lucky Stars Genre: Power pop, emo, pop punk Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull track: Weird Florida
Camp Trash and Rosy Overdrive are effectively the same age. The first person to ever contact the blog about submitting new music to it was Keith Latinen of Count Your Lucky Stars regarding the group’s debut EP, January 2021’s Downtiming. It feels like some kind of milestone to now be talking about the Florida four-piece band’s first full-length album, The Long Way, The Slow Way—one that would be basically ruined if the record wasn’t any good, but thankfully it echoes and expands on the promise that Downtiming showed. The sound that’s most recognizably Camp Trash is here—you know, the end-of-the-20th-century pop rock that pulls from both the 90s underground and 00s pop culture. Last year’s “Weird Florida” graces The Long Way, The Slow Way with its sugary harmonies—on the album, it’s part of a power pop opening trio that also includes the nervous earnestness of “Mind Yr Own” and “Pursuit”.
Not that the rest of The Long Way, The Slow Way isn’t full of emo/pop punk-tinged power pop, either—the second half of the record features the bouncy, economical, Oso Oso-evoking “Lake Erie Boys” and the 90s alt-rock loud guitar pop of “Let It Ride”. Camp Trash do take advantage of having a full dozen tracks to work with in order to explore a bit in the middle of the album, however: the fuzz-drone, LVL UP-ish “Another Harsh Toyotathon” is the one that immediately comes to mind, but there’s also a power ballad center of the record in “Poured Out” and “Enough Explaining”. The Long Way, The Slow Way is more of a “band” record than Downtiming, but like that EP, it’s still clear-sounding pop music. The vocals are front and center, and each song has at least one line that benefits from this positioning (from the insistence of “I’m not sad, I’m quiet sometimes” in “Enough Explaining” to “When I’m not making noise, I feel small” in “Church Bells”), and it’s stubbornly timeless-sounding for evoking such a specific era of guitar music. (Bandcamp link)
Flamingo Rodeo – Pontoon
Release date: June 30th Record label: Shuga Genre: Folk rock, alt-country Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Mexico
Chicago’s Mikey Wells first became known to me as a guitarist for the now-defunct NE-HI, a band whose coiled-up garage rock energy still makes them stand out as under-appreciated and singular. Flamingo Rodeo has a little more in common with Wells’ post-NE-HI group, the chiller and lightly psychedelic Spun Out, but Pontoon occupies a different space than either of those bands. The project’s second record finds Wells fully embracing twang, hopping from tender folk rock to boisterous Midwestern alt-country over the course of ten tracks. Opening track “Tooth and Nail” is laid-back but driven, sliding through easygoing verses to get to a pumped-up chorus, establishing a country rock side to Flamingo Rodeo that shines throughout the record—namely, in the toe-tapping “Bacalar”, the woozy singalong “Sweet Serene”, and the rousing send-off of “Homily”.
The guitar effects, cosmic lyrics, and haphazardly-applied traditional elements of “Null Eternity” make it a great twisted country tune that harkens back to some of the more “out there” elements of Wells’ past bands. As attention-grabbing as that song is, though, there is notable growth in the sheer number of subtler moments scattered throughout Pontoon. The harmonica-aided “Sorrowflown” anchors the center of the record in thoughtful Americana, while plenty of the second half of the record drifts off like the boat in the record title—the spoken-word piano-led “El Nuevo”, the soundscape of the title track, and the pastoral folk of “Mexico”. Some of the information regarding Pontoon seems to imply that Mikey Wells will be focusing on other bands and projects rather than Flamingo Rodeo following its release; whether or not the country embrace of this record finds its way into Wells’ other music, Pontoon is a sturdy trip on its own. (Bandcamp link)
Hurry Up – Dismal Nitch
Release date: June 24th Record label: Comedy Minus One Genre: Punk rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Days of Our Love
Hurry Up is a fierce Pacific Northwest punk rock trio made up of guitarist Westin Glass, drummer Kathy Foster (both formerly of The Thermals), and bassist Maggie Vail (Bangs). Dismal Nitch, the band’s sophomore record, is the first full-length by the band in seven years, and it appears to have been in the works for quite a while (“You Just Wait” showed up as a single back in 2018), but the record sounds anything but “over-labored”. The band play together deftly but not showily, ripping through thirteen tracks that evoke the spirit of West Coast garage punk—recalling everything from X to vintage Kill Rock Stars groups to Dead Moon (whose “Fire in the Western World” gets a scorching cover on Dismal Nitch).
The gleeful middle fingers of “No!” and “Oh Screw It” tear right into the more fun moments of 90s riot grrl, and tracks like opener “American Weirdos” and “Invasive Species” are just runaway trains of fuzzy pop songs. Dismal Nitch consistently sounds like a blast, which helps keep some of the heavier and less immediate moments from sticking out too much in the context of the album. The sharp-edged “Death Puberty” features dart-and-dash guitar playing and a dynamic vocal performance, while the blistering “You Just Wait” with its “you’ll get yours” message to an unnamed powerful individual (I wonder who it could be—there are so many possibilities) hits with a full-on assault. Dismal Nitch can be serious without being exhausting about it, and the three band members all make the most of their turns at frontperson without ever tipping the balance of an equal-on-all-sides trio. (Bandcamp link)
Careen – Careen Love Health
Release date: June 24th Record label: Self-released Genre: Post-hardcore, post-punk, noise rock Formats: Digital Pull track: Spit Choke
Bellingham, Washington’s Careen make an insular, noisy brand of post-hardcore and indie rock that evokes enigmatic 90s underground groups like Unwound and Polvo. The group—which recently expanded to a four-piece, adding drummer Neto Alvarado and guitarist Aiden Blau in addition to bassist Bryan Foster and guitarist/vocalist Desi Valdez—has released four EPs counting June’s Careen Love Health; although at 28 minutes, it’s a nearly full-length statement.
Half of Careen Love Health’s length is made up of its two bookend tracks—the six-minute opener “In the Light Of” and eight-minute closing track “Longest Piss” are both noise rock odysseys, veering from tense post-punk to feedback-and-hollering rave-ups on multiple occasions. Those two towering tracks are the immediate attention-grabbers, but the middle of Careen Love Health is where the group explore the edges of their sound a bit—particularly in the noise piece “Swallow”, but they also turn in the swirling instrumental “Slacker” and the slowcore/Slint-esque exercise in restraint that is “Unalloyed”. Not that bands like Careen are overly committed to “friendliness” in their music, but if you’re looking for a squall, Careen Love Health is a fairly rewarding one. (Bandcamp link)
If you’re still looking for more new music, you can browse previous editions of Pressing Concerns or visit the site directory.
Motherhood – Winded
Release date: June 24th Record label: Forward Music Group Genre: Post-punk, art punk Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital Pull track: Crawly I
An “avant-punk” trio hailing from the rather unlikely location of New Brunswick, Fredericton’s Motherhood have been marching to the beat of their own drum for nearly a decade now. Their latest record, Winded, has a barebones, almost live-in-studio feel, with the core of guitarist/vocalist Brydon Crain, bassist/vocalist Penelope Stevens, and drummer Adam Sipkema tearing through both garage rock rippers and weirder turns. Crain’s vocals have a really pleasing sung-spoken quality to them, especially in songs like single “Shepherd”, in which his delivery somehow sounds both lazy and rushed at the same time.
Winded roars out of the gate with the opening duo of “Crawly I” and “Crawly II”, both of which are revved-up post-punk garage numbers, although they accomplish this in different ways—the former speeds along at a breakneck pace, the latter stomps around intensely. Although Motherhood do rave up later on in Winded (see mid-record workout “Ripped Sheet”), the heart of the record is a more mid-tempo but still rather thumping version of prog-punk-pop. “Tabletop” is a hypnotic rhythm section workout, and the eerie “Handbrake” introduces the idea of a Motherhood ballad (explored further in “Shuttered Down”). The stop-start of closing track “Trees” slowly takes the shape of something akin to 60s pop-rock, a clear an example as any of Motherhood making something inviting out of unlikely beginnings. (Bandcamp link)
Young Guv – GUV IV
Release date: June 24th Record label: Run for Cover/Hand Drawn Dracula Genre: Power pop, jangle pop, psych pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Too Far Gone
GUV IV is Young Guv’s second record of 2022, and it comes from the same origins as did March’s GUV III (one of my favorite records of the year so far). The impetus for both records began during an extended stay by Young Guv leader Ben Cook and his bandmates in the New Mexico desert in 2020, and they were both recorded in Los Angeles the next year. The short way to differentiate between the two is that GUV III was the more “traditional” power pop one, while GUV IV is airier and more psychedelic, but because it’s still Young Guv we’re talking about, these songs still strongly evoke the “pop” side of psych pop.
Cook’s foray into desert psychedelia is unsurprisingly deft, calling to mind both the Laurel Canyon sound and more modern practitioners of similar music like Ty Segall and Cool Ghouls. Songs like “Change Your Mind” float along lazily and hazily, and the multi-layered “Overcome” particularly feels like a trip. Most of GUV IV is more of a mix between the pure psych embrace and more traditional GUV pop fare—the confident handclaps of opening track “Too Far Gone”, the jangle pop heart of “Sign from God”, the brisk indie pop of “Cold in the Summer”, the surprising but quite accessible country rock of “Maybe I Should Luv Somebody Else”. Young Guv records have traditionally held a lot in which to get lost; it makes sense that Cook would eventually settle on evoking a whole desert for an album. (Bandcamp link)
Pet Fox – A Face in Your Life
Release date: June 17th Record label: Exploding in Sound Genre: Math rock, 90s indie rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Checked Out
Pet Fox feels almost like the quintessential Exploding in Sound Records band—to the point where it feels strange that A Face in Your Life is only their first full-length record for the label. Just their connections to other EIS bands alone could qualify them: vocalist/guitarist Theo Hartlett and bassist Morgan Luzzi also play drums and guitar, respectively, in Ovlov, while drummer Jesse Weiss played in Grass Is Green and Palehound. But the music contained within A Face in Your Life also makes the case—the trio play a welcome math-y strain of 90s-influenced indie rock that’s well in line with the core of their label’s roster.
Opening track “Settle Even” eases into the Pet Fox experience with its slow-burn, five-minute runtime, before presenting the listener with some more Dischord-influenced songs (“A Face in Your Life”, “Undeserving You”, both of which also remind me of another Dischord-influenced EIS band, Two Inch Astronaut). “Checked Out” taps into the indie rock-by-way-of XTC nervous pop that’s one of my favorite sub-sub-genres in this type of music. Hartlett’s guitar leads continuously stick out on A Face in Your Life—chiming and melodic, they give the record the unique feeling of austere indie rock, but with bright marks and accents drawn over it. (Bandcamp link)
Grass Jaw – Circles
Release date: June 17th Record label: Habitforming Genre: Alt-country, fuzz rock, folk rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Excuses
“All I want is to never have to do anything again,” sings Brendan Kuntz at the beginning of “Deer Song”, which comes midway through Circles, the latest record from his project Grass Jaw. Kuntz has been developing his own particular mix of slowcore/indie rock with folk and alt-country for a while now (Rosy Overdrive wrote about Grass Jaw’s Anticipation last November), but Circles in particular feels like a weary record. That doesn’t make it a depressing album on the whole, however—“Deer Song”, for instance, leads Kuntz to think “Maybe my life isn’t so hard” after seeing the titular animal, and songs like “Start Over” (featuring Pet Fox’s Theo Hartlett on guitar) are positively uplifting.
Although Kuntz’s Brett Sparks-esque stoic holler and rickety guitar are constants throughout Circles, the record features a somewhat-surprisingly adventurous assortment of other instrumentation, most prominently saxophone at the end of “Dopamine” (played by Tom Yagielski), but also trombone (Egor Remmer) and melodica (Kuntz himself). In addition, the “traditional” rock band instruments find time to let loose on the record (like in “Mules”), giving Circles a full and frequently loud sound, which suits these odd country tunes just fine. (Bandcamp link)
Welcome to a special Monday edition of Pressing Concerns! Today, we’re looking at new albums from Green/Blue, Hazy Sour Cherry, and Wowza in Kalamazoo, and a new EP from Interior Geometry. Last week I was too busy putting together Rosy Overdrive’s Top 40 Albums of 2022 So Far to get one of these up, but I’m planning on getting two shorter Pressing Concerns up this week to catch up on new music.
If you’re still looking for more new music, you can browse previous editions of Pressing Concerns or visit the site directory.
Green/Blue – Paper Thin
Release date: June 10th Record label: Feel It Genre: Post-punk, garage rock Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Moving On
Minneapolis post-punk group Green/Blue is comprised of four veterans of the Twin Cities music scene. Led by the founding/songwriting duo of Jim Blaha and Annie Sparrows and rounded out by Daniel Henry and Dustin James, Paper Thin is Green/Blue’s second record of 2022 (following January’s Offerings) and finds the band absolutely nailing a particular subset of modern post-punk music. It’s unabashedly guitar-forward in a garage rock way that puts them squarely in line with the record labels that have put out their two most recent records (Hozac and Feel It), but it also embraces a dark, reverb-heavy sound that gives it an unexpected but welcome weight.
Opening track “In Lies” features urgent-sounding but quite melodic guitar leads and harmonies between Blaha and Sparrows—it is, beneath its buttoned-up surface, an incredibly catchy pop song that doesn’t suffer for not appearing obviously as one. Although the first aspect of Paper Thin I noticed is just how sharp and distinct it sounds, the record is full of music moments that make these songs pop and become quite memorable. Blaha’s surprisingly soaring falsetto in “Away”, the pulverizing bass in “In Time”, the stomping energy of “Moving On”, and the stunning minimalism of “Floating Eye” all give Paper Thin color without shaking up the singular, sleek vibe of the record. It’s a record that only gains esteem in my eyes the more I hear it. (Bandcamp link)
Interior Geometry – Tore Through the Sky
Release date: June 10th Record label: Self-released Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, garage rock, fuzz pop Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: What Have You Done?
Jared Sparkes may be more known to some as a member of Michigan fuzz rock group don’t, but they recently stepped out on their own as Interior Geometry with last year’s How to Be Invisible EP, and the just-released five-song Tore Through the Sky continues Sparkes’ solo career. I say solo career because this is clearly Sparkes’ project, but contributions from collaborators prominently mark Tore Through the Sky, from Mitten State great Fred Thomas providing bass guitar on multiple songs to the excellent lead vocal turn from Mary Fraser on “Tender Terrible”. Sparkes’ distinct version of poppy lo-fi, 90s-style indie rock comes through on this relatively brief EP, most clearly in the fuzzy twang of opening track “What Have You Done?” and the barreling “Wet Swans On & On”, but the brief (45 second) LVL UP-esque blast that is “Holy Water” suggests that Sparkes is also interesting in the fraying that frequently comes with this kind of music. (Bandcamp link)
Hazy Sour Cherry – Strange World
Release date: June 15th Record label: Damnably Genre: Pop punk, power pop, indie pop Formats: Vinyl, digital Pull track: Strange World
The Tokyo four-piece group Hazy Sour Cherry have returned with Strange World, a sophomore record that comes off as an enthusiastic mix of power pop, 70s punk, and indie pop. The opening and title track sets up a format at which Hazy Sour Cherry excel throughout Strange World: pure pop music vocally and musically accented with revved-up punk-inspired guitar riffs and leads by guitarist Jun. I imagine Hazy Sour Cherry could’ve turned in a dozen songs like “Strange World”, but the rest of the record features just the right amount of adventurousness—the light, danceable guitar pop of “The City”, the found sounds in “Tsuzumi Q”, and the Mekons-esque violin rock of “Vampire”, to name a few of the more prominent examples. “Hot Dub Summer Night” is a dub remix of an existing Hazy Sour Cherry that doesn’t strip away the energy of the band but rather twists it a bit in a new direction—right in line with the rest of Strange World. (Bandcamp link)
Wowza in Kalamazoo – Why You Don’t Come Around
Release date: June 3rd Record label: Self-released Genre: Psychedelic rock, krautrock Formats: Digital Pull track: Nightly Commute Overhead
Michigan’s Wowza in Kalamazoo (or just Wowza) is a five-piece group comprised of some adventurous musicians who’ve played in bands like Minutes, OUT, and The Revelators. Why You Don’t Come Around is the band’s second full-length album together, and it drops in on a group comfortable swinging from extremes. The accordion-tinged, Yo La Tengo-esque restraint of opening track “Oh Hell” is a delicate mix of musical improvisation and Franki Hand’s melodic vocals, something they explore again late in the record with “Pedigo”. Energetic wall-of-noise psych freakouts like the ten-minute “Welcome In” and “Stella Rondo” grab one’s attention, as does the beautifully lilting mid-tempo indie rock of “Nightly Commute Overhead” and—oh, there’s also a straight-up hardcore punk track in the sixty-second “Overtime”. (Bandcamp link)
If you’re only just now joining us: this is part two of my list of my favorite forty albums of 2022 thus far, presented alphabetically. Thanks for reading!
Here are links to stream a playlist of these selections via Spotify and Tidal (Bandcamp links are provided for all records that have one below).
Mister Goblin – Bunny
Release date: April 22nd Record label: Exploding in Sound Genre: Post-hardcore, alt-rock, indie folk Formats: Vinyl, digital
The third record from the Maryland-originating, Indiana-based Mister Goblin is the first to feature a full-on backing band–Sam Goblin is joined by bassist Aaron O’Neill and Options’ Seth Engel on drums. I don’t know if Bunny is the best Mister Goblin album yet, but it’s certainly the most full-throated-sounding one of them. The band go for it in the Brainiac post-hardcore opening track “Military Discount” and turn in invigorated versions of the Mister Goblin/Two Inch Astronaut sound in “Good Son/Bad Seed” and “Holiday World”, and (just as importantly) the trio still find room for Sam Goblin’s songwriting to breathe in the largely-acoustic final three songs on the record. (Read more)
My Idea – CRY MFER
Release date: April 22nd Record label: Hardly Art Genre: Indie pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
The debut full-length record from My Idea, the duo of Lily Konigsberg (Palberta, a solo career) and Nate Amos (Water from Your Eyes, This Is Lorelei) is predictably great, predictably full of intriguing and rewarding pop songs, and somewhat surprisingly dark underneath its surface. Konigsberg and Amos are both mainstays of Rosy Overdrive (this is not the only album featuring at least one of them that appears on this list), but CRY MFER stands out among their respective discographies with its autobiographical relationship fracturing at the record’s center. This doesn’t stop songs like “I Should Have Never Generated You”, “Yr a Blur”, and the title track from being some of the best pop moments in either of their music careers, however.
Oblivz – Managers
Release date: May 23rd Record label: Self-released Genre: Synthpop, post-punk Formats: Digital
After over a decade of marking post-punk/power pop-inspired indie rock as half of Fox Japan, the duo of Charlie Wilmoth and Andrew Slater have formally forged something different with Oblivz. The group’s debut EP was 2021’s Uplifts, but its follow-up Managers sounds like a full-throated commitment, the debut of Oblivz as something more than a “Fox Japan side project”. The songs sound fuller and denser, with Slater and Wilmoth finding a New Order-ish medium between guitar rock and electronic music. The black humor and undercurrents of corporate unrest and horror that marked Uplifts and Fox Japan are both present in Managers, particularly in the grim execution bureaucracy of “Out of Time” and the manic “Dr. Y”. (Read more)
Oceanator – Nothing’s Ever Fine
Release date: April 8th Record label: Polyvinyl/Disposable America/Plastic Miracles Genre: Indie punk, alt-rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Elise Okusami’s follow-up as Oceanator to 2020’s Things I Never Said (one of my favorite albums of that year) delivers another collection of deep (in multiple ways) but frequently accessible songs, even as it forges ahead a bit in terms of advancing Okusami’s sound. Nothing’s Ever Fine doesn’t exactly hold the listener’s hand, giving the cold shoulder initially with thorny opening duo “Morning” and “Nightmare Machine”, but “The Last Summer” and “Beach Days (Alive Again)” eventually reveal Okusami’s urgent, frantic version of upbeat and catchy indie rock.
OMBIIGIZI – Sewn Back Together
Release date: February 10th Record label: Arts & Crafts Genre: Indie rock, “Moccasin-gaze” Formats: Vinyl, digital
OMBIIGIZI is a collaboration between Adam Sturgeon of Status / Non Status and Daniel Monkman of Zoon, two Anishnabee artists who already sound in tune to one another on their debut record as a duo, Sewn Back Together. The album covers a lot of ground, from psychedelia to post-rock to dream pop and shoegaze, although as sonically interesting as Sewn Back Together is, the record still feels lyrics-forward—or, at least, message-forward. Some of the songs (“Ookwemin”, “Yaweh”) repeat a line or two hypnotically to drive things home, and some of the record’s wordier tracks (“Residential Military”, “Birch Bark Paper Trails”) necessitate (and are granted) breaks in the clouds. (Read more)
Oso Oso – Sore Thumb
Release date: March 18th Record label: Triple Crown Genre: Pop punk, emo, power pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
Oso Oso’s latest release, Sore Thumb, is apparently comprised of what were supposed to be demos recorded together by Oso Oso bandleader Jade Lilitri and his frequent collaborator and cousin Tavish Maloney, and then left basically untouched after Maloney’s sudden death last year. The record sounds awesome (even without a “for demos” caveat), and as a collection of songs Sore Thumb approaches the exhilarating consistency of 2017’s The Yunahon Mixtape. From the absolutely stunning opening track “Computer Exploder” to less aggressive but equally potent album songs (“Describe You”, “Father Tracy”) to new weird places (the hypnotic “Pensacola”), it’s a complete triumph.
Patches – Tales We Heard from the Fields
Release date: February 25th Record label: Self-released Genre: Post-punk, jangle pop Formats: Digital
Patches are a new Austin-based trio comprised of Evan Seurkamp (of The Laughing Chimes), RKC, and Aaron Griffin. Their debut release is the full-length Tales We Heard from the Fields, a generous 14-song collection that takes cues from all over the map of the past 40 years of alternative rock music. Several hallmarks of post-punk characterize songs like “Plastic and Gold” and “Revisitation”, and there’s also clear influence from classic guitar pop in the sunny “Parallel Mind” and the triumphant “Rosaley”. Plodding, expressive bass guitar tempers some of Tales We Heard from the Fields’ brighter moments, and hooks still mark the moodier ones. (Read more)
Pedro the Lion – Havasu
Release date: January 20th Record label: Polyvinyl Genre: Indie rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
The list of singer-songwriters who I will allow to transport me back in time to middle school is very short indeed. If David Bazan wasn’t on it before Havasu, he’s probably somewhere near the top of it now. His latest record with Pedro the Lion sketches the titular Arizona military town in which he lived for a small but pivotal time in his youth. Like 2019’s Phoenix, Pedro mostly sticks to an austere rock band sound to call up the desert, but the music (played mostly by Bazan himself) is inspired and Bazan’s narration is able to take the listener both to the exact moment these old memories happened and to look at them with some remove.
Romero – Turn It On!
Release date: April 8th Record label: Feel It/Cool Death Genre: Power pop, garage rock, punk rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
The debut album from Melbourne, Australia’s Romero is a non-stop blast of classic punk rock-infused power pop that rips through eleven sturdy songs gleefully and deftly. Most of Turn It On! has a big, go-for-it kind of energy that evokes the 1970s as much as any of the deliberate “retro” flourishes in their music do—it reminds me of Sheer Mag’s starting points of influence, as well as the poppier moments of Screaming Females. Turn It On! demands to be played loud, and lead singer Alanna Oliver is more often than not belting out her lyrics—these are professionally-done pop songs that don’t let their foot off the gas for a second. (Read more)
Russel the Leaf – My Street
Release date: January 22nd Record label: Records from Russ Genre: Power pop, indie pop Formats: Cassette, digital
Even though My Street commits towards more of a “rock band” sound, Russel the Leaf’s first record of 2022 (out of two, so far) contains plenty of the Brian Wilson-esque studio pop that marked last year’s Then You’re Gunna Wanna. Album opener “Listen to Me” and the violin-aided “Little Italy, Again” are both piano-led baroque pop as clear-eyed as ever, although Russel the Leaf’s Evan Marré also pulls out bouncy acoustic, almost folk-pop songs like the exquisite title track or the incredibly catchy “Catch the Spell”. The ironic grin of highlight “Oh, No” is the best example of Marré’s lyrical gift of creating catchy nosedive scenarios. (Read more)
Sadurn – Radiator
Release date: May 6th Record label: Run for Cover Genre: Alt-country, indie folk Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Philadelphia’s Sadurn make a very intriguing and attention-grabbing version of alt-country—it’s sincerely devoted to the “country” aspect of the genre, but they still sound quite accessible and built to emphasize frontperson Genevieve DeGroot’s songwriting. Sadurn started as DeGroot’s solo project, but the full band that they’ve assembled for their debut record is an asset throughout Radiator, and it’s rarely guilty of overplaying. For every shuffling roots-rock anthem like opening track “Snake”, there’s something like the unflinching relationship analysis of “Icepick”, in which drum machines and synths are DeGroot’s main accompaniment. (Read more)
SAVAK – Human Error / Human Delight
Release date: April 15th Record label: Peculiar Works Genre: Post-punk, garage rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
SAVAK’s fifth record, Human Error / Human Delight, sounds like the work of a band that’s automatically in tune with each other—I imagine that’s due to a combination of the members’ decades of experience in bands like Obits, Edsel, and Holy Fuck, their ever-growing repertoire together, and a shared love of the less exploited (and subsequently more interesting) sides of punk and post-punk music. Present-day SAVAK is less about imitation and more the result of years of honing the friendlier moments of Wire, Sonic Youth, and Mission of Burma into something new and distinct. Human Error / Human Delight comes off as SAVAK not only being guided by “making the music they want to make”, but by “making what they’d want to listen to” as well, with an accessible but meaty collection of songs resulting. (Read more)
Sarah Shook & the Disarmers – Nightroamer
Release date: February 18th Record label: Abeyance/Thirty Tigers Genre: Alt-country, country rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Sarah Shook & the Disarmers broke through in 2018 with the excellent Years, and after some label troubles and pandemic-related delays, Nightroamer picks up where the group left off four years ago. A lot of Nightroamer finds the North Carolina-based band allowing Shook’s songwriting to stretch out just a little more than in the past, but there’s no mistaking the record for anything less than the work of more-than-capable country rockers. It’s not exactly an uplifting record, but Nightroamer can be a comfort both in soundtracking darker moments (“It Doesn’t Change Anything”, “Stranger”) and in delivering genuine surprises (“I Got This”).
Stomatopod – Competing with Hindsight
Release date: January 29th Record label: Pirate Alley Genre: Punk rock, alt-rock, garage rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
Chicago trio Stomatopod fall under the umbrella of “Steve Albini-at-Electrical Audio-recorded 90s-inspired indie rock”, but the trio pull from just about every decade in rock music history throughout Competing with Hindsight. All six of the record’s songs have a grunge-y/Wipers dark undercurrent, John Huston’s clean everyman vocals are very 90s Matador indie rock, and the ever-present earnest guitar rave-ups that characterize the record catch the spirit of garage and hard rock, even if they’re not quite as sloppy as the former nor showy as the latter. Competing with Hindsight is consistent to the point where it’s hard to point to specific songs to highlight—it’s all just one great jam. (Read more)
Superchunk – Wild Loneliness
Release date: February 25th Record label: Merge Genre: Power pop, indie rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Wild Loneliness is, unsurprisingly, a good Superchunk album (I don’t think they make any other kind). Its mid-tempo, Portastatic-y surface make it a bit less immediate than 2018’s What a Time to Be Alive, but I think this one will have even more long-term staying power. Its ten tracks take me back to Here’s to Shutting Up and (especially) Come Pick Me Up, and Mac McCaughan’s lyrics keep just enough of the political-mindedness of What a Time to Be Alive, but tempers this focus with a distance and from-a-remove analysis that fits well with the rest of the record’s pensive atmosphere.
This Is Lorelei – Falls Like Water Falls
Release date: February 7th Record label: Self-released Genre: Indie pop, indie folk Formats: Digital
Nate Amos may not be churning out music as This Is Lorelei at the ridiculous pace he was setting in the middle of last year, but his first release under the moniker in 2022 more than compensates for that. Falls Like Water Falls (which Amos apparently found time to make in between full-lengths from the two bands he’s also in, Water from Your Eyes and My Idea) is a mix of weird airy minimalism (“Woof!”), Elliott Smith indie-folk (“He Was Leaving”), and sharp pop songs (“He Loves Me”) that feels like fully-realized in spite of the jumping around.
Jeff Tobias – Recurring Dream
Release date: January 7th Record label: Strategy of Tension Genre: Experimental pop, post-punk, synthpop Formats: Vinyl, digital
The debut “pop” record from New York multi-instrumentalist Jeff Tobias is something new for the Sunwatchers/Modern Nature saxophonist. Recurring Dream is an adventurous album—Tobias alone is credited with playing fourteen different instruments on the record—but it’s also a highly cohesive one. Tobias’ fervent yet intimate vocals help to ground Recurring Dream when it’s jumping from, say, the urgent chaos of opening track “Our Very Recent Past” to the minimalist funk rhythms of “We’re Here to Help”. Tobias has a lot to say on Recurring Dream, but this doesn’t get in the way of the “pop” side of things either—pretty much every song on the record has a strong hook, and it ends with “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror”, a shimmering piece of synthpop propulsion that feels like it could go on forever. (Read more)
Vundabar – Devil for the Fire
Release date: April 15th Record label: Gawk Genre: Post-punk, garage rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
I never think of Vundabar as one of my favorite bands or anything, but the Boston group deserve commendation for their recent string of solid post-punk-revival-indebted records delivered like clockwork every other year. The follow-up to 2020’s Either Light (which made my year-end list) finds Brandon Hagen, Zack Abramo, and Drew McDonald probing some surprisingly dark and atmospheric territory, but there’s plenty of classic Vundabar nervy pop music on Devil for the Fire, too. The opening duo of “Aphasia” and “Ringing Bell” starts the record off on a subtle note, but by the time “The Gloam” and “Nosferatu” roll around midway through the record, Vundabar are letting “loose” in the coiled way they do.
Young Guv – GUV III
Release date: March 11th Record label: Run for Cover Genre: Power pop, jangle pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
I greatly enjoyed GUV I and GUV II, the twin 2019 releases from Young Guv, the power pop project of former Fucked Up guitarist Ben Cook. I’m happy to report that GUV III is solid as well (as is its follow-up, GUV IV, but you’ll have to wait for more on that one). Even for a record made by someone as clearly inspired by pop music as Cook, GUV III is wildly packed with could’ve-been hit singles. Every time I listen to GUV III, a different song sticks out—sometimes it’s the soaring chorus of “Only Wanna See U Tonight”, the melodic guitar washing-over of “Lo Lo Lonely”, or the zippy “Same Old Fool”.
Zinskē – Murder Mart
Release date: February 14th Record label: Self-released Genre: 90s indie rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
Everything’s tight and in its right place on Murder Mart, the debut album from Philadelphia’s Zinskē. It’s a sleek, well-put-together record that reminds me both of austere, controlled post-punk and mid-tempo 90s alt-rock. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Chris Lipczynski’s low, dry, and stoic vocals stick out throughout the record, as do Emily Cahill’s prominent and frequently melodic basslines. There’s a “sharp dullness” to Murder Mart—the songs might seem opaque at first, but there’s too much going on underneath the surface to ignore. Lipczynski and the band perform this balancing act of being a subtle band that yet always sounds animated by something—even in the lyrics (hell, whole songs) on Murder Mart that I can’t quite parse. (Read more)
It is mid-June, which means it is now time for Rosy Overdrive to choose forty records that have stood out in the first six (or so) months of 2022. As per usual, there were more than forty good records to come out this year, many of which I’ve written about elsewhere on the site, so this isn’t comprehensive by any means. It’s also not as comprehensive as the end-of-year list will be; there’s some stuff out now that’ll probably end up there, I just haven’t given it enough attention yet.
The list is unranked, alphabetical by artist name. Last year I did reverse-alphabetical order for the mid-year list, so I guess we’ll just alternate from here. Like last year, I mostly stuck to full-lengths, but readers will notice a couple of EPs in here as well.
Thanks for reading, and here are links to stream a playlist of these selections via Spotify and Tidal (Bandcamp links are provided for all records that have one below).
Release date: January 21th Record label: Cappio/Svart Genre: Slowcore Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
I was partially drawn to 40 Watt Sun’s Perfect Light because the album artwork and group name reminded me of Mark Eitzel’s 60 Watt Silver Lining, and, well—the record doesn’t disappoint on this front. Patrick Walker, the mind behind 40 Watt Sun, apparently has a doom metal past, but Perfect Light is all gorgeously ornate, heartbreaking slowcore. Most of the record’s eight songs stretch beyond eight minutes long, with Walker’s strong but vulnerable vocals finding and holding on to striking melodies over top of ebbing and flowing piano and guitar.
Bad Heaven Ltd. – In Our House Now
Release date: January 28th Record label: Self-released Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, dream pop Formats: Cassette, digital
Bad Heaven Ltd. is the solo project of Pennsylvania-based John Galm, and In Our House Now is his third album under the name since 2016. Galm is probably most famous for his cult emo group Snowing, but In Our House Now falls squarely into the category of “hazy, downcast indie rock” and sounds more like Hovvdy, Sparklehorse, and Grandaddy than anything else. Like the best records in this genre of music, Bad Heaven Ltd. avoids the common pratfalls of grayness and facelessness with memorable melodies and inspired instrumental choices from the get-go. Galm’s tender voice is a highlight throughout In Our House Now—it’s striking despite sounding humble and breathy, and is an essential part of these songs. (Read more)
Bellows – Next of Kin
Release date: March 23rd Record label: Topshelf Genre: Indie pop, indie folk, art pop Formats: Vinyl, cassette, CD, digital
The latest album from Bellows, the project of New York’s Oliver Kalb, has grandiose ambitions, but Next of Kin seems equally concerned with not losing the plot at the record’s sturdy core. Kalb’s songs are dressed up in colorful, brimming palettes throughout the record, but his vocals are breathy and impassioned even in Next of Kin’s busiest moments, which preserves the songs’ intimacy. It’s an important wrinkle for Next of Kin, an album that sits with losses that are felt from the slight-remove of the title on down. (Read more)
Big Nothing – Dog Hours
Release date: February 18th Record label: Lame-O Genre: 90s alt-rock, punk rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
The members of Philadelphia’s Big Nothing have put their time in with various bands for a few years now; that is to say, they’ve earned their “indie punk band goes mellow alt-rock” moment. The ten tracks of Dog Hours evoke a very specific period of beginning-of-the-90s “college rock”—bands like late-period Replacements/early Paul Westerberg solo material, The Lemonheads, and Buffalo Tom. There’s a weariness to Dog Hours, but it doesn’t sacrifice hooks or pop songwriting either—it makes messiness and uncertainty sound simple and breezy. (Read more)
Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
Release date: February 11th Record label: 4AD Genre: Indie folk, alt-country Formats: Vinyl, cassette, CD, digital
I had been on the Big Fence about Big Thief for years now, rolling my eyes at some of the hyperbolic praise they’ve gotten even as the electric catharsis of Two Hands scraped my 2019 year-end list and I’ve been impressed by the prolific nature of the band’s members. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is the first time I’ve strongly felt that the group is where they should be musically—it sounds like a record made by four people in tune with themselves and no one else, giddily embracing all of their own ideas just to see where they go. This artistic confidence is a great trait for making ambitious double albums—so long as one doesn’t let it go unchecked to the point where one thinks they can start “healing” ethnic persecution with it, but I digress.
Release date: February 14th Record label: La Loi Genre: Jazz-pop Formats: Cassette, digital
Blanche Blanche Blanche is the duo of singer Sarah Smith and multi-instrumentalist Zach Phillips (also of Fievel Is Glauque and a bunch of other bands). The two have made a lot of music together; so far, I’ve only heard their latest record, 2022’s Fiscal, Remote, Distilled, but it rules. It’s a shiny, original record of jazzy pop marked by Smith’s clear vocals that are sung-spoken but still quite melodic and by Phillips’ arsenal of jazz and rock band instruments that can both overwhelm and draw back to fit the songs. Fiscal, Remote, Distilled is smart, but comes off straightforward—songs like “That’s Siberia”, “Overdry Sensation”, and “Only Yesterday” have been bouncing around my head since I heard them initially.
Julia Blair – Better Out Than In
Release date: February 24th Record label: Crutch of Memory Genre: Roots rock, alt-country Formats: Vinyl, digital
I’ve known Julia Blair as a member of Appleton, Wisconsin’s country rock group Dusk, contributing piano, violin, and vocals on highlights like “Done Nothin’”. Her debut solo record, the amusingly-titled Better Out Than In, will appeal to Dusk fans, even as Blair takes strides in establishing her own sound on the album. Dusk have a classic retro pop-rock streak to them, and Blair explores this fully on Better Out Than In. A lot of the songs on the record excel at finding a groove and riding it out, with Blair repeating a few key lyrics and the music form-fitting to them, like enthusiastic highlights “Make the Darkness Go Away” and “Just a Cue”.
Cashmere Washington – Almost Country for Old Men, Electro Country for They/Them
Release date: February 25th Record label: Self-released Genre: lo-fi indie rock Formats: Digital
The second in Cashmere Washington’s debut trio of EPs continues Thomas Dunn’s blend of indie rock with “beat-making and lo-fi production”—think music made by somebody equally inspired by math rock and J. Dilla. Almost Country for Old Men… feels more relaxed and confident than last year’s The Shape of Things to Come, not reaching as far into the emo tinge that appropriately colored that EP’s formative recollection. Instead, the new EP casts a wide net, ranging from piano ballads to slacker rock to pop punk over the course of six songs. There’s been a lot of promise in Cashmere Washington since its inception, and it’s already being realized. (Read more)
Editrix – Editrix II: Editrix Goes to Hell
Release date: June 3rd Record label: Exploding in Sound Genre: Experimental rock, math rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
The second record from Boston’s Editrix comes a year and change after 2021’s superb Tell Me I’m Bad, and it finds the group’s talented trio advancing even further together. Editrix II: Editrix Goes to Hell feels more insular and more focused than the “zanier” Tell Me I’m Bad, with guitarist Wendy Eisenberg’s vocals falling in line with the musical storm cooked up by them, bassist Steve Cameron, and drummer Josh Daniel (although their singing still sticks out in poppier highlights like “I Can Hear It” and “Queering Ska”). It’s all still recognizably Editrix—a band that’s the crowning achievement of one of the most prolific and intriguing frontpeople in indie rock currently, and a force in its own right as well.
Ex-Vöid – Bigger Than Before
Release date: March 25th Record label: Don Giovanni Genre: Jangle pop, power pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
I’m not really familiar with Joanna Gruesome, the Welsh band that rose and fell in the early 2010s, but I’m fully on board with Ex-Vöid after hearing their debut album. Bigger Than Before is the full-length reunion of Joanna Gruesome singer-songwriters Alanna McArdle and Owen Williams—their first band disintegrated after McArdle stepped away from it in 2015, although they released an EP under the Ex-Vöid name in 2018 and Williams has been playing in The Tubs lately. Bigger Than Before is a big, hooky, indie pop record that’s got just a bit of an edge to it. It’s power pop at its wistful best, with McArdle and Williams’ harmonies being shot through with just enough noisiness to punch the songs up a tad.
Freakons – Freakons
Release date: March 25th Record label: Fluff and Gravy Genre: Folk, country Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Freakons is, naturally, a collaboration between Jon Langford and Sally Timms of The Mekons and Freakwater’s Catherine Irwin and Janet Bean (also of Eleventh Dream Day) with several ringers (Jean Cook, Anna Krippenstapel, Jim Elkington) getting in on the action as well. They have been playing together in some form for awhile now, but their self-titled debut record as a group is a must-listen for fans of protest folk music, as the two bands find solidarity in the shared coal-mining backgrounds of their states of origin (England and Kentucky). The American Chestnut Blight, railroad culture, deadly mining disasters, and organized labor all get their moments in the spotlight on Freakons.
Golden Boots – Liquid Ranch
Release date: April 28th Record label: Pass Without Trace Genre: Alt-country, lo-fi indie rock, psych-country Formats: Vinyl, digital
Golden Boots’ core duo of Ryan Eggleston and Dimitri Manos cite both 70s country and 90s lo-fi indie weird pop (Pavement, yes, but also eyebrow-raising names like Bingo Trappers, Strapping Fieldhands, and Tall Dwarfs) as wells from which they draw their sound. Liquid Ranch is apparently the Tucson band’s seventeenth record, and while it’s the first Golden Boots album I’ve heard, I feel like I understand where they’re coming from just based on its contents. Liquid Ranch is a very accessible record at its core, but it isn’t without its share of odd, scenic-route detours as well. It has hooky alt-country tracks (“Lookout”, “Sedona”) as well as more cosmic moments in “Skylight” and “Chemical Burn”. (Read more)
Good Grief – Shake Your Faith
Release date: March 8th Record label: Everything Sucks/HHBTM Genre: Indie punk, punk rock, 90s indie rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
Good Grief are quite adept at making loud, punk-influenced hooky rock music that’s immediately familiar and recognizable to fans of 90s indie rock, and their long-awaited debut record (practically a decade in the making) reflects this. The Liverpool trio are extremely open Bob Mould disciples, songs like “The Pony Remark” could’ve come straight from Superchunk’s On the Mouth, and there’s a heart-on-sleeve earnestness that puts them into Samiam/Knapsack-esque emo-punk territory. No matter how many older groups Shake Your Faith evokes, it all sounds remarkably fresh and present.
Guided by Voices – Crystal Nuns Cathedral
Release date: March 4th Record label: GBV, Inc. Genre: Indie rock, post-punk, power pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Judging by both Crystal Nuns Cathedral and the advance singles from July’s Tremblers and Goggles by Rank, Guided by Voices are in a heavier, denser mood as of late. I’m on board with it. While Crystal Nuns Cathedral does contain plenty of muscular guitar pop that this current iteration of Guided by Voices can easily churn out (see “Come North Together” and “Never Mind the List”, not to mention the title track), there’s a darkness to these dozen tunes that colors songs like towering opening track “Eye City” and the surprisingly dramatic “Climbing a Ramp”. As the band’s “new lineup” enters a half-decade of playing together, Robert Pollard and his collaborators sound as invigorated as ever.
The High Water Marks – Proclaimer of Things
Release date: February 4th Record label: Minty Fresh Genre: Power pop, shoegaze, noise pop Formats: Vinyl, digital
It’s only been a year and a half since late 2020’s Ecstasy Rhymes, but if The High Water Marks are trying to make up for the thirteen year gap between that record and the one before it, then that’s fine with me. Proclaimer of Things is a spirited noise pop album, burying melodies in the lightly psychedelic fuzz of tracks like “We Are Going to Kentucky” and the title track. The High Water Marks’ two bandleaders, Hilarie Sidney and Per Ole Bratset, take turns delivering highlights in songs like “Jenny” and “The Best Day”. These original Elephant Six folks are still at it, and still have a lot left in them. (Bandcamp link)
Jon the Movie – A Glimpse That Made Sense
Release date: January 5th Record label: New Morality Zine/Cauldron of Burgers Genre: Lo-fi indie rock/punk Formats: Cassette, digital
Long Island, New York’s Jon Gusman is perhaps most notable musically as being the vocalist for hardcore group Rule Them All, but he debuted his solo project Jon the Movie at the beginning of the year with A Glimpse That Made Sense. Jon the Movie falls nicely into the category of “dude with hardcore background making more melodic alt-rock”—Gusman cites Fugazi, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Guided by Voices, and I’ll be damned if the first five songs on A Glimpse That Made Sense don’t sound like the exact center of that triangle. “I Can’t Help” is MacKaye and Jimmy Chamberlain-evoking, “Soul Tied to a Stranger” is particularly Pollardesque, and ten-minute closing track “Quest for Materiality” veers hard into prog opera. (Read more)
Joyride! – Miracle Question
Release date: April 15th Record label: Salinas Genre: Power pop, pop punk, indie rock Formats: Vinyl, digital
I don’t know much about the band Joyride!. They’re from San Francisco and have been around for a decade or so, but I only heard of them after they released their fourth album, Miracle Question, earlier this year. But they’re quickly becoming one of my favorite new discoveries of 2022. Miracle Question is a classic 2010s lo-fi power-pop-punk album at heart, even as shiny as it sounds. Joyride! get all of this done in under a half hour, with most of these songs making their impression both musically and lyrically (there is a lot going on beneath the surface on Miracle Question) in about two minutes or so.
Joe Kenkel – Naturale
Release date: January 13th Record label: Earth Libraries Genre: Folk rock, alt-country Formats: CD, digital
Rosy Overdrive is a noted fan of Nashville supergroup Styrofoam Winos, and the latest solo project from a member of the group is a record that holds up well against his band’s work. Joe Kenkel’s songs are some of the lighter and spacier moments on the most recent Styrofoam Winos record, and Naturale inhabits a similar territory. Kenkel’s acoustic guitar and humble vocals are in a familiar dreamy country/folk style throughout Naturale, but there’s also a drum machine and synths hanging out in the background that reveals of another side of the singer-songwriter, that of an 80s sophisti-pop aficionado.
MJ Lenderman – Boat Songs
Release date: April 29th Record label: Dear Life Genre: Alt-country, country rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
At 34 minutes, Boat Songs is the most substantial record to come out of MJ Lenderman’s recent flurryof activity. Something of a breakout record for the Asheville alt-country musician (and member of Wednesday), Boat Songs should immediately grab any curious new listeners with the roaring country rock opener “Hangover Game” and the mid-tempo southern groove of “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat”. The rest of the record is a showcase for all of Lenderman’s talents, from the lo-fi fuzz-fests of “SUV” and “Dan Marino” to the affecting wrestling-themed ballad of “TLC Cagematch” to the “how-does-he-do-it” genius of “You Are Every Girl to Me”. (Read more)
Maneka – Dark Matters
Release date: March 11th Record label: Skeletal Lightning Genre: Experimental rock, lo-fi indie rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Dark Matters is either the second or third album from Maneka, the project of Brooklyn-based Devin McKnight (depending on how one views 2017’s Is You Is), and it’s certainly the most ambitious record I’ve heard yet from him. The album cycles through jazz interludes, lo-fi, slowcore-influenced indie rock, experimental pop, and guitar-rock workouts in a clean half-hour, resulting in several peaks throughout Dark Matter: the chaotic multi-part single “Winner’s Circle”, the mid-tempo middle of “The Glow Up”, and the propulsive closing track “Bluest Star”.
Today’s Pressing Concerns looks at a new album from The Rosie Varela Project, a new EP from Personal Space, a re-released album from TJ Douglas, and an album from Teenage Tom Petties that’s actually shorter than the Personal Space EP.
Rosy Overdrive’s May Playlist also went up this week, which I’d recommend checking out as well. If you’re still looking for more new music, you can browse previous editions of Pressing Concerns or visit the site directory.
Personal Space – Still Life
Release date: June 3rd Record label: Good Eye Genre: Indie rock, post-rock, math rock, soft rock Formats: Digital Pull track: Long Live the New Flesh
Personal Space’s second album, 2021’s A Lifetime of Leisure, was a subtly-crafted record that steadily wormed its way into being one of my favorites of last year. Their songs are comprised of familiar indie rock ingredients, but no one band quite provides the template for their unique blend of “chill” vibes, unusual song structures, and left-wing political lyrics. A Lifetime of Leisure ebbed and flowed across ten tracks, so it’s interesting that the Brooklyn four-piece have chosen to follow up the record with a four-song EP that gives them a lot less room to leisurely stretch out. Still Life is not a world away from the Personal Space of last year, but it feels a little more pointed, and makes the most of its relatively short length by covering a wide breadth of sonic and lyrical ground.
The EP’s first two tracks (“Enron’s Trip” and “Long Live the New Flesh”) find Personal Space dipping their toe into the worlds of Stereolab-esque krautrock chugging and Thrill Jockey-adjacent post-rock accents. The latter’s lyrics describe a tightrope-walking-act of trying to feel okay surrounded by bad vibes in what feels like a callback to their last album. Similarly, “Enron’s Trip” also feels like vintage Personal Space with its mixture of compassion and contempt for its finance-bro subject, finding him somewhat pathetic but knowing that he’ll always have some kind of advantage over the rest of us due to his lack of morals.
After those two songs, Personal Space lob “Ceviche from Kew Gardens” at you, in which Sam Rosenthal delivers a more straight insecurity/anxiety-laden song about infatuation and not being able to stop thinking about one person. It’s not completely uncharted territory for Personal Space (see “Overture”) but just how fully Rosenthal veers into it (“You take me back to when crushing on the AIM was new / Now it’s something kind of blue”) is kind of jarring, and intriguing. Still, the ending refrain sounds like chill-math-rock-Personal Space at its most classic, reinforcing the fact that nobody else is doing it like them. (Bandcamp link)
The Rosie Varela Project – What Remains
Release date: June 3rd Record label: Hogar Genre: Dream pop, psych pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull track: Louise
Readers of this blog may recall Rosie Varela as the lead singer of El Paso shoegaze band EEP, whose Winter Skin was one of my favorite records of last year. That album, the band’s sophomore record, found the five-piece group incorporating influences (electronic, psychedelic, funk) beyond shoegaze, but even considering that expansion, Varela still had an entire record’s worth of songs she felt didn’t fit in with EEP’s sound. Every member of EEP contributes musically to What Remains and it’s being released by EEP’s home label of Hogar Records (which also released EEP member Ross Ingram’s Sell the Tape Machine last year). Nevertheless, the resultant product isn’t really something that I’d easily mistake for “EEP LP3”, and one gets why Varela chose to release the record under her own name.
What Remains has been described as an “avant-pop/dream pop” record, and I’d emphasize the avant- and the dreaminess over the pop—it feels like a more subtle, less immediate record than Varela’s past work. That’s not to say What Remains is devoid of pop songwriting, which becomes apparent early on as Varela takes us through the massive-sounding opening track “Louise” and the slow-burning, acoustic “Wound”, which sounds like ghostly 90s-esque dream pop shot through with the sounds of Varela’s desert home. Both of these songs contain ace melodies, but I’ll emphasize the “slow burn” here—songs stretch out, and various instruments drop out and reappear throughout the lengths. Songs like the rollicking psych-rock of “My Sunshine” keep the energy up in the second half, but I believe that the core of What Remains is the pairing of the lounge-y title track and “Leave Me Alone”. The former is haunted and urgent, the latter confident and in control, but both find Varela rejecting and tossing off the sinister and the degrading, and urging the listener to do the same. (Bandcamp link)
TJ Douglas – Lo 2.0
Release date: June 10th Record label: Beach Plum Tapes Genre: Indie folk Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Evelyn
TJ Douglas’ Lo was initially self-released as a digital-only album in March 2020, in the midst of everything that was going on back then. The original version of Lo—seventeen songs and nearly an hour long—flew a bit under the radar (for instance, I greatly enjoyed Douglas’ previous record, 2017’s Our Lady Star of the Sea, Help and Protect Us, but didn’t find Lo until months after its release). Douglas wrote Lo while attending a seminary, training to become a hospital chaplain, and they view those songs as particularly confessional, even considering that “all [their] albums are personal”. Deciding that these songs were worthy of a wider release, Douglas chose ten of them (plus one new song) to re-release on cassette as Lo 2.0 with Beach Plum Tapes, and the result is an intimate-sounding but varied collection of indie rock and folk songwriting.
The simply-strummed acoustic guitar chords that mark the first half of album opener “Take Heart” eventually give away into a full-band climax, while the more urgent-sounding electric guitar that guides Douglas’ vocals throughout “You Are Not” actually ends up being their only accompaniment. Douglas’ “comfort zone” is slow-burning, guitar-led indie rock, and they put together really moving songs in this fashion like “Evelyn” (my personal favorite from the original Lo, happy to see it made the cut) and “Friend Breakup” (which is about exactly what it says it is). Still, Douglas works in some other methods in Lo 2.0, like the piano hymn-sounding “Anywhere Everywhere”, the hazy synths of “Catholic Radio”, and the curious electronic-organ sound of closing track “House on a Hill”. Douglas’ lyrics, which frequently reference their faith and struggles with sobriety, are serviced well by this collection of music, and one doesn’t need to be grappling with either of those subjects to get something out of Lo 2.0. (Bandcamp link)
Teenage Tom Petties – Teenage Tom Petties
Release date: June 3rd Record label: Repeating Cloud/Safe Suburban Home Genre: Lo-fi power pop Formats: Cassette, digital Pull track: Lambo
Tom Brown is a bit more well-known as one-half of the English indie rock duo Rural France, but less than a year after that band’s latest record (October’s RF), he’s debuted a new solo project called Teenage Tom Petties (named after a Rural France song, or maybe the song is named after the project). Teenage Tom Petties is pure lo-fi power pop, similar to Brown’s band but perhaps a bit more direct and fuzzier. At eight songs and 14 minutes long, the record wastes not a minute, kicking off with two incredibly infectious noise pop songs in “Boatyard Winch” (which buries something of a glam strut in its chorus) and “Lambo” (a dingy piece of suave power pop). The only somewhat kinetic “Boxroom Bangers” is something of Teenage Tom Petties’ version of “pensive”, or maybe that label best applies to “Last Starfighter”, which marries its pop to rather sad lyrics (“I don’t care if you love me, my heart’s not in it now”).
Songs like “My Name Is Chaos” and “Boxroom Blues” are both would-be killer singles, even though their function here is just to punch up the middle and closing sections of the record. Even though Brown calls Bath, England home, most of his musical touchstones seem to be 90s American indie rock and punk. Teenage Tom Petties subsequently comes off like a weird mix of British landmarks and Americana—multiple songs taking place in “boxrooms”, cool car vibes, references to the Beastie Boys, James Brown, and Wu-Tang, not to mention Brown’s chosen moniker. “I met a girl in America / But America won’t let her go,” sings Brown at the end of a hidden acoustic closing song. It’s not exactly an endorsement of the cultural soup in which Teenage Tom Petties gestated, but if songs like the ones on this record can come out of it, there must be something worthwhile there. (Bandcamp link)
Another monthly playlist is here! It’s a weird one! A lot of stuff from this year, of course, a few selections from 1980 (the year I’m currently digging into), and a good deal of miscellaneous songs! But they’re all good!
The only band with multiple songs on the playlist this time around is this up-and-coming new group called, uh, Squeeze (although there are also two Bob Mould appearances between multiple projects).
Here is where you can listen to the playlist on various streaming services: Spotify, Tidal, BNDCMPR. Be sure to check out previous playlist posts if you’ve enjoyed this one.
“Hank”, Friendship From Love the Stranger (2022, Merge)
I liked “Ugly Little Victory”, the first song from Friendship’s upcoming Merge Records debut, Love the Stranger. Its sped-up tempo combined with the unmistakable voice of lead singer Dan Wriggins made me curious to hear more of where the band is going. However—I love “Hank”, the second single. Wriggins’ voice and lyrics are perfect—it’s far from his most overtly emotional or expressive performance, but his build-up to the song’s simple yet effective refrain (“What an ugly thought / IiiiiI was thinking”) couldn’t fit the song better. And the percolating electric guitar lead that basically runs through the whole song is a nice surprising edition, evoking their new labelmates in Lambchop and even Crooked Fingers (didn’t think you’d read a Crooked Fingers comparison today, did you?).
“I Don’t Want Hope”, Cave People From Wind Burn (2022, Disposable America)
I’m sure anyone reading this blog is familiar with the concept of a song providing a mirror to something going on with you internally. Unfortunately for me, today that song is “I Don’t Want Hope” by Cave People. “I don’t want hope, I don’t need it in my indecision,” sings the band’s Dave Tomaine over a cheerful country-rock instrumental that pretty much accomplishes everything it needs to in 90 seconds but keeps going for the fun of it. “I was told so many things would come with patience / So I waited like a dog for a bone,” he recalls at another point in the track, tacitly acknowledging the error of his past ways. In the song’s most memorable moment, Tomaine declares “I’m a piece of shit / And you’re an asshole”…maybe that’ll do it. Maybe that’ll make the distance uncrossable.
“Irl”, Peaness From World Full of Worry (2022, Totally Snick)
Chester, England indie pop trio Peaness (yeah yeah I know) has been around for a nearly a decade, but World Full of Worry (which they released on their own record label, Totally Snick) is only their debut full-length record. It’s a smooth album with plenty of guitar-pop hooks, but “Irl” in particular is a beast of a single. “Irl” is, I think, about the disconnect between how one can present oneself in a carefully-curated digital environment and What’s Actually Going On, which is probably why it can get away with a joyous, dance-friendly energy while asking “What if I told you lies? … / …. What if I said I’m fine?” in its chorus.
“Trophy”, Supercrush From Melody Maker (2022, Don Giovanni)
A highlight among the supremely solid Melody Maker EP, “Trophy” is a power pop stomper where Supercrush let their Matthew Sweet flag fly proudly. The band say that the song originates from their attempt to conjure up the spirit of 1990s one-hit wonder guitar bands, and they pull out all the stops (crunchy power chords, a cranked-up key change) to get there. Read more about Melody Maker here.
“Coronet”, Oblivz From Managers (2022)
“Coronet” closes Oblivz’s Managers EP, a step forward in their synthpop/post-punk sound in which Andrew Slater’s guitar duels with electronic elements and Charlie Wilmoth unspools opaque but evocative lyrics. The opening guitar riff kicks off an instrumental that feels particularly inspired by escape, of leaving all the garbage behind in the dust. “Made to play make-believe,” Wilmoth declares curiously toward the end of the song. Read more about Managers here.
“Training Montage”, the Mountain Goats From Bleed Out (2022, Merge)
I don’t want to do the “best album/single since ______” thing, but I will say that “Training Montage” makes me feel how Mountain Goats songs felt when they were my favorite band, something I haven’t been able to say about a lead single from one of their records since the better part of a decade. “Training Montage” and the record from which it comes, Bleed Out, were produced by Bully’s Alicia Bognanno (a name I never thought I’d see associated with the Mountain Goats), and it sounds like what I would’ve initially thought “the Mountain Goats as a quartet” would sound like: an extension of the band’s 2000s 4AD Records output, but fuller-sounding.
“Clean Getaway”, Caroline Spence From True North (2022, Rounder)
I’ve been aware of Caroline Spence for a while, even as she has traditionally operated in a different sphere of music than the one in which I usually immerse myself. I was somewhat surprised to see True North get some attention in my circles, but after spending some time with it, I’m happy to report that it deserves it. It’s not a showy record overall, but “Clean Getaway” is a killer roots-pop song that pulls out all the stops. Eager to please, easy to grasp with coming off as dumbed-down or sanded-away—there’s always a place for songs like this.
“Empathy”, SAVAK From Human Error / Human Delight (2022, Peculiar Works)
On their fifth album together as a trio, Brooklyn’s SAVAK make music that’s informed by decades of experience and appreciation of underground indie rock, but that doesn’t sound bogged down by all this theoretical weight. The group seem to make music that they would want to hear, and while sometimes this veers into scorching post-punk, they can also turn in something more tender—like “Empathy”, which is catchy in a straight-up power pop fashion. Read more about Human Error / Human Delight here.
“Pulling Muscles (From the Shell)”, Squeeze From Argybargy (1980, A&M)
I don’t know why I’d never really given Squeeze a shot until last month (probably because there’s just too much music out there?), but Argybargy was easily my favorite older music discovery of May. It’s hard for someone of my cohort to hear a song like “Pulling Muscles (From the Shell)” without thinking man, Ted Leo was heavily influenced by these guys—music writers love to list the “cooler” Pharmacists touchstones like The Clash and Thin Lizzy, but this song sounds more actually like Leo than any in those two bands’ discographies. As for the song itself—Wikipedia says that the title is supposed to be a sexual metaphor, but I like to imagine it’s just about a nice time at the beach.
Some of you are probably aware that I’ve been on a big Bob Mould kick lately. It’s hard to stay away from any artist who’s capable of making something as singular and towering as Copper Blue is in my estimation. It’s such a great record that Sugar didn’t even have room for “Needle Hits E”, a vintage hard-charging Mould pop song that could only ever really be outshone in the context of an album that also contains “The Act We Act”, “A Good Idea”, “Helpless”, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”, etc. So instead it was sent to B-side-dom, appearing on the “Changes” single (that’s double A-side quality as far as I’m concerned) for people like me to rediscover years after the fact.
“I Just Need a Second”, Cool Original From Outtakes from “Bad Summer” (2022, Topshelf)
In “I Just Need a Second”, everything swirling around throughout Outtakes from “Bad Summer” comes together to create a dagger of a five-minute pop song. Cool Original is the vehicle of Strange Ranger drummer Nathan Tucker, and his band’s blend of catchy alt-rock with more experimental fare is a good reference point for Cool Original, as is fellow Philly studio projects Russel the Leaf and Thank You Thank You. There are all sorts of touches to “I Just Need a Second” that give it a being-viewed-from-underwater haziness, but Tucker lets the song speak for itself for the most part, lets the melody worm its way into your head on its own.
“Dream City”, Free Energy From Stuck on Nothing (2010, DFA)
Hey, anyone remember these guys? Free Energy? Anyone? They released their debut album on DFA at the height of LCD Soundsystem’s power, leading to a funny indie music moment where critics were hailing a 70s-worshipping power pop dude band in a way that very rarely happens (the inevitable backlash was quite harsh). Blissfully unaware of who Tim Goldsworthy was, I discovered Free Energy because I heard “Bang Pop” at a Dick’s Sporting Goods once. That’s still one of my go-to pop songs, but the rest of Stuck on Nothing holds up quite well, particularly the swaggering “Dream City”, one of the half-dozen tracks that could’ve been the “Free Energy theme song”.
“Didn’t Come Here to Count ‘Em”, The Best Around (2022)
I’ve previously written about The Best Around’s synthpop-influenced cover of Silkworm’s “Young”, but the Austin band’s latest (original) song is perhaps something one might be more inclined to expect from a Texas group. “Didn’t Come Here to Count ‘Em” is a rollicking country-rock tune recounting an alcohol-fueled misadventure (the follow-up to the title line: “I came here to drink ‘em”). Singer Camron Rushin gets plenty of mileage from familiar milestones—mistaking his own wife for another woman through “beer goggles”, tangling with law enforcement, you know—all while the band (aided by trumpet from Jon Merz and a lot of touches from multi-instrumentalist Todd Pruner) adds a lot of depth to the tune.
“Twin Coasts”, No One Sphere From Isn’t Everything About Something (2022, Too Much Fun)
No One Sphere is the project of Washington, D.C.’s Dave Mann, and he and his group of collaborators (multi-instrumentalist Jarrett Nicolay, violinst/vocalist Emily Chimiak, vocalist Adrienne Kennelly) have put together a frequently rocking but always hooky debut record in Isn’t Everything About Something. “Twin Coasts” kicks off the album with fuzzy power pop, keyboards and guitars punching up Mann’s blatantly catchy chorus and sneakily just-as-catchy verses.
“The Amarillo Kid”, Craig Finn From A Legacy of Rentals (2022, Positive Jams/Thirty Tigers)
It’s not exactly surprising that Craig Finn’s solo material has been good of late, but the Hold Steady frontman is still surprising me with just how he succeeds on A Legacy of Rentals. Album highlight “The Amarillo Kid” is vintage Finn lyrically—either you’re into it or you’re not, it comes highly recommended from me personally—but, like the best moments from 2019’s I Need a New War, it’s delivered over a spirited instrumental. Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer The Hold Steady musically, but that weird little intro and interlude synth/bass thing is, surprisingly, just as memorable as Finn’s words.
“Around You”, Say Sue Me From The Last Thing Left (2022, Damnably)
The third album from South Korea’s Say Sue Me is an impeccable indie rock record, in great part due to tracks like “Around You”. It’s not an overly flashy song, but it’s sneakily incredibly-written and executed, and by now it’s maybe one of my favorite songs I’m highlighting in this post. Say Sue Me aren’t really a straight dream pop band, and “Around You” has way too much energy to be mistaken for that genre, but there is an airiness to the song that puts it somewhere other than “retro pop rock run through an indie filter”.
“Chelsea Encounter”, John Jody From Crooked Star (2022, Ramp Local)
With Crooked Star, New York’s John Jody veers hard into acoustic, singer-songwriter folk music, fairly far removed from the more experimental fare he’d been making under the name Black Nash. Jody is quite good at writing sparse songs, as Crooked Star’s first track and lead single “Chelsea Encounter” reveals. The wide-eyed song features pedal steel flourishes and a siren going off faintly in the background in the midst of a captivating three minutes. Read more about Crooked Star here.
“Happy Woman Blues”, Lucinda Williams From Happy Woman Blues (1980, Smithsonian Folkways)
Long before Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, there was Happy Woman Blues, released by Smithsonian Folkways nearly two decades before Lucinda Williams’ magnum opus. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s a much more traditional-sounding record than what would come later, but it’s Williams’ first record of all-original material, and she’s already got “it” (it’s already got a version of “I Lost It”, which would become arguably the best song on Car Wheels). The record’s title track is a slide guitar-enhanced blast, and an early peak for Williams in terms of vocal performance.
“I Wanna Hold Your Electric Hand”, Oneida From Success (2022, Joyful Noise)
You don’t need to be familiar with the wide discography of New York’s Oneida to appreciate “I Wanna Hold Your Electric Hand”, the lead single to the band’s upcoming record Success (I think it’s their thirteenth, but it varies based on what you count). Befitting its simple title, “I Wanna Hold Your Electric Hand” is a euphoric two-chord rocker that’s immediately charming. It reminds me of the more transcendent moments of studious rock bands like Yo La Tengo, Silkworm, and Eleventh Dream Day, and its energy evokes the perpetually underrated Parts & Labor. I’ll have more to say about Oneida in the future.
“Wait in the Car”, The Breeders From All Nerve (2018, 4AD)
Am I a morning person? Relative to other parts of the day, I suppose I am, but I don’t really fit the bill of how a “morning person” acts. Anyway, I have a job that starts pretty early, and when I find myself interacting with other people at that hour, I find myself thinking of the song which features the most effective use of “good morning!” in music. The first five seconds of “Wait in the Car” feature a brief guitar riff and Kim Deal rather, um, forcefully uttering the aforementioned greeting. It’s up there with the “Cannonball” intro as far as I’m concerned. So, there, [co-worker name redacted], here’s some fucking morning cheer for you.
“Cop Just Out of Frame”, Propagandhi From Victory Lap (2017, Epitaph)
Oh, goodness. There is a lot I could say about this song, much of which falls outside the direct purview of these (allegedly) brief song entries. Oh, also, suicide content warning for this one. The title of “Cop Just Out of Frame” does not actually refer to the shocking but sadly unsurprising display of pure cowardice we all had the misfortune of witnessing in southern Texas recently, but rather an odd detail about the 1963 self-immolation of Vietnamese monk Thích Quàng Dúc (you know, the one on the Rage album cover). It’s something of a meditation by singer Chris Hannah on the disconnect between his beliefs and his (self-perceived) inaction, but the line that sticks with me is about what would actually happen if he followed in Quàng Dúc’s footsteps (“The only tale that would be told / Would be that it was me, not them, who was insane”).
“Dominoes”, Shoulder Season From Not the Time (2022)
Not the Time is a nice, solid EP from Nova Scotia’s Shoulder Season. The quartet hits on something right off the bat with the record’s opening track, the anxious 90s alt-rock “Dominoes”. The song zips along to a brisk drumbeat provided by Meg Yoshida (also of Dog Day), while Mel Sturk’s power chords pace back and forth to soundtrack a lyric that features an appropriate amount of trepidation about the state of things and whatnot. The band (also featuring keyboardist/vocalist Karen Foster and bassist Kristina Parlee of Smaller Hearts) gets in and out in under two and a half minutes, as it should be.
“Hawks Don’t Share”, Carson McHone From Still Life (2022, Merge)
The latest record from Austin-originating singer-songwriter Carson McHone is out on the great Merge Records, and was produced by her husband, Daniel Romano. Still Life is, predictably, a quality album, but it’s still very much McHone’s show, and she supplies the best parts of the record. Opening track and lead single “Hawks Don’t Share” features some very Romano-esque maximalist horn-and-keyboard accents, but the swelling country-rock tune at the heart of it is what pulls everything up with it.
“Look Back”, The Boys with the Perpetual Nervousness From The Third Wave of… (2022, Bobo Integral)
The only fault I could really find with Songs from Another Life, the 2021 sophomore record from The Boys with the Perpetual Nervousness, is that it was too short. Thankfully, the duo of Andrew Taylor and Gonzalo Marcos are already rolling out its follow-up, this September’s The Third Wave of…. Single “Look Back”, as its title implies, continues the band’s streak of nostalgia-tinged, bittersweet songwriting from a thematic perspective. Musically, meanwhile, it’s bright, shiny, harmonious jangle pop at its finest, just as we’ve come to expect from TBWTPN.
“Live This Way”, Gorgeous Bully From Am I Really Going to Die Here (2022)
In what I’ve come to recognize as vintage Gorgeous Bully fashion, “Live This Way” is a catchy, hooky lo-fi indie rock song with unavoidably sad lyrics. “Live This Way” is more subdued than, say, Am I Going to Die Here’s lead-off track “Sick of Everything”, but when it comes down to it, it’s a weary song about Thomas Crang observing to whoever cares to listen that he can’t, in fact, live this way. Read more about Am I Really Going to Die Here here.
“Playing House”, R.E. Seraphin From Swingshift (2022, Mt. St. Mtn./Dandy Boy/Safe Suburban Home/Tear Jerk)
The Bay Area’s R.E. Seraphin recorded the core of his Swingshift EP in his bedroom, with other musicians’ contributions later overdubbed. Despite these homespun origins, Swingshift reaches for the more spirited, full-band version of power/jangle pop on “Playing House”. The opening track features a thumping drumbeat and a blaring guitar line, and at one point lets loose a triumphant guitar solo that justifies Seraphin’s citing of Cheap Trick as an influence on its own. Read more about Swingshift here.
“My Living Wage”, Tiers La Familia From Active Cultures/Active Couture (2022, Strategy of Tension)
Tiers La Familia is the project of New York’s Joe Sidney, and Active Cultures/Active Couture finds Sidney exploring a chaotic, frequently abrasive style of electro-punk. The album was released on cassette by Jeff Tobias’ Strategy of Tension label (Tobias himself plays on a few songs), although Sidney’s blend of synths and rock band elements is a world away from Tobias’ pristine Recurring Dream. “My Living Wage”, tucked away near the end of the tape, is the album’s biggest “pop” moment, a blaring fuzz-rock tune that has some beauty buried underneath.
“The Crunch”, Toy Love From Toy Love (1980, Deluxe)
I’ve been a fan of Tall Dwarfs and Chris Knox’s solo career for quite awhile now, but last month marked the first time I’d really listened to the band that started it all for Knox and Tall Dwarf co-leader Alec Bathgate. The 1980 Toy Love album is mostly what I expected to hear (which is a good thing)— more in line with the then-current wave of punk rock happening in much larger countries than their home of New Zealand, but with Knox’s sharp songwriting already peaking through the snotty cracks. “The Crunch” is a particularly curious one, with hard-charging verses attached to something of a meditative chorus.
“19”, Snow Ellet From Glory Days (2022, Wax Bodega)
Chicagoland’s Snow Ellet (the solo project of Eric Reyes) is already prepping the follow-up to last year’s Suburban Indie Rock Star (which was one of my favorite EPs of 2021); hell, at the pace I’m doing these, Glory Days might already be out by the time this goes up. Lead single “19” is Snow Ellet’s entry into the world of “songs about being a certain age”, and it immediately goes up there with the best of those—Reyes’ killer vocal hooks, the power-pop-emo sheen, and the budget-but-great-sounding drum machine backing all make it one of their best songs yet.
“Another Nail in My Heart”, Squeeze From Argybargy (1980, A&M)
Squeeze had already caused some consternation by giving their new record such a British title, and as catchy as “Pulling Muscles (From the Shell)” is, it seems like an odd hit single. There’s no mystery as to why “Another Nail in My Heart” succeeded, though. It feels like an important milestone on the pub rock-punk-new wave continuum: chugging guitar, unrestrained synth coloring, and, I mean, come on: “Here in the bar / The piano man’s found / Another nail for my heart”. That’ll be more than enough.
“Are You Terrified?”, J. Marinelli From Putting the World to Rights (2022, ORG)
Last month, the Scandinavian-based, Appalachian-originating singer-songwriter James Marinelli announced the follow-up to last year’s Fjorden & Fjellet EP (one of my favorite EPs of 2021). Putting the World to Rights will feature those four songs, as well as “Are You Terrified?”, the record’s “official” lead single. “Are You Terrified?” continues Fjorden & Fjellet’s mission of cleaning up Marinelli’s lo-fi fuzz-folk-punk just enough to not lose its immediacy, and like some of the songs on that EP, it reads like it could be a grand global statement or an inner personal monologue.
“Heartbreak a Stranger”, Bob Mould From Workbook (1989, Virgin)
Thirty-something years later, Workbook is still a pretty weird and fascinating album in the Bob Mould canon. It’s not my favorite record of his, but it’s really great for what it is, and it reaches successfully for something that Mould generally doesn’t reach for in his music. “Heartbreak a Stranger” is probably my favorite song from Workbook, its six minutes traveling across all sorts of assembled parts (that jangly guitar riff intro, a spare handclap, Mould really pushing himself vocally) to make a unique and memorable whole.
“Lambo”, Teenage Tom Petties From Teenage Tom Petties (2022, Repeating Cloud/Safe Suburban Home)
Like lead single “Boatyard Winch”, “Lambo” is an absolute blast of lo-fi punk/power pop from Tom Brown’s Teenage Tom Petties project. It rips through two minutes of basically nonstop hooks filtered through a fuzzy roar—the track’s inherent coolness has very little to do with the titular luxury care. I’ll have more to say about Teenage Tom Petties soon.
“Rud Fins”, Robert Pollard From Our Gaze (2022, GBV, Inc.)
I’m of two minds about Our Gaze, the recent compilation of two Robert Pollard solo records (2007’s Standard Gargoyle Decisions and Coast to Coast Carpet of Love) into one album. On the one hand, both of those albums are good enough to stand on their own, and culling the “best” from both of them leaves out many worthy songs. On the other one, though, both of those albums are underappreciated and largely forgotten, so if this is what it takes for them to get some kind of attention, I’ll take it. “Rud Fins” was never my favorite track on Coast to Coast Carpet of Love, but it shines enthusiastically in Our Gaze (Pollard superfans will also note the reference to a “Captain Hudson Rake” over a decade before said figure gets his own Guided by Voices song).
“Turn My Way”, Jeremy Scott From Bear Grease (2022, Back to the Light)
Memphis’ Jeremy Scott is most well-known as a part of garage rockers Reigning Sound (he was an original member, left for awhile, and now is back in the band), but it’s his less raucous record under his own name that has caught my attention as of late. Despite being a musician for two decades or so, Bear Grease is Scott’s first solo album, but it’s a good argument for the guy to make a few more of them. Album opener “Turn My Way” is a subtle but really accessible mid-tempo country-rock tune—if you’re a fan of Jeff Tweedy, for instance, you’ll probably like it.
“Tooth & Nail”, Flamingo Rodeo From Pontoon (2022, Shuga)
The second record from Flamingo Rodeo looks to be some of the finest Midwest country-rock Chicago has to offer. The project is spearheaded by Mikey Wells, best-known to me as a guitarist for the singular and dearly-departed NE-HI, and later as part of Spun Out. Pontoon and its lead single, “Tooth & Nail”, don’t compare neatly to either of those acts, with Wells instead veering much further into Americana and classic rock moves. I’ll have more to say about Pontoon eventually.
“Searching for a Former Clarity”, Against Me! From Searching for a Former Clarity (2005, Fat Wreck Chords)
I’m too casual of an Against Me! fan to really wade into the very exhausting-seeming debates about when they stopped being good, what still holds up, why they left Fat Wreck Chords, etc. But I do like Searching for a Former Clarity—something I have reaffirmed recently—and the closing title track has been sticking with me as of late. Laura Jane Grace’s recent turn towards Mountain Goats-influenced storytelling in her recent solo work shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who paid attention to early Against Me!, but “Searching for a Former Clarity” in particular is an excellent specimen—as well as previewing another subject that Grace would, famously and historically, tackle with Against Me! a decade later.
This week’s Pressing Concerns covers a new EP from Supercrush, plus new albums from Kamikaze Nurse, Gabriel’s Dawn, and Soft Screams. Look for more albums out this week to show up in next week’s edition of Pressing Concerns. And the May playlist will go up…at some point.
Release date: June 3rd Record label: Debt Offensive/Flake/Erste Theke Tonträger/Don Giovanni Genre: Power pop, alt-rock Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital Pull track: Trophy
Supercrush and I are fluent in the same language, so to speak. In their latest EP, the Seattle group come off as totally devoted to fuzzy, power-chord-friendly 90s-style power pop. I can fairly easily name a dozen bands or acts whose sonic or songwriting styles Supercrush evoke throughout Melody Maker. Wait, you actually want me to do it? Fine: Sloan, Teenage Fanclub, The Lemonheads, Sugar, Superdrag, Jawbreaker, The Posies, Matthew Sweet, Velvet Crush, Tommy Keene, Dinosaur Jr., Ride. There you go. Being power pop scholars is all well and good, but Melody Maker works because it’s a product of enthusiastic believers—Supercrush’s strengths lie less in academically recreating or trying to create some kind of perfect lab mix of these sounds, and more in just letting their faith in these songs speak for itself.
Out of all those acts I mentioned earlier, the one that hovers over Melody Maker the most is one of the least “cool”/hip namedrops to make in 2022—Matthew Sweet. The more I think about it, though, the more it pops out to me—the guitar hero attitude, the soft but empathic lead vocals of Mark Palm, the lyrics that veer from romanticism to cynicism quickly but deftly. I hear it the most in the back-to-back punch of the title track and single “Trophy”, both of which are withering character studies that may or may not reflect a little bit of the performer in them (particularly the former, which declares “You’re no idiot savant, you’re an idiot” to a self-aggrandizing singer-songwriter). Of course, the most important thing about these songs to Supercrush is that they’re both catchy as hell, especially “Trophy”, which stomps its way through an attempt to recreate a lost 90s one-hit wonder single that’s almost too successful. As is the rest of the EP, mind you—from the barreling giddiness of opening track “Perfect Smile” to the towering, “Hoover-Dam”-esque closing statement of “Helium High”. It’s all a treat. (Bandcamp link)
Kamikaze Nurse – Stimuloso
Release date: June 3rd Record label: Mint Genre: Post-punk, noise rock, psychedelic rock, shoegaze Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull track: Boom Josie
The sophomore record from Vancouver’s Kamikaze Nurse can hit like a blunt object while still feeling intricately-crafted. The quartet (guitarist/lead vocalist KC Wei, guitarist Ethan Reyes, bassist Sonya Eui, and drummer John Brennan) make full-sounding music on Stimuloso that evokes dense shoegaze, rhythmic post-punk, and Sonic Youth-inspired art rock. In the face of the record’s instrumental onslaught, Wei’s vocals could have very easily ended up buried anonymously or treated completely like an afterthought; instead, they’re one of the most immediately memorable features of the album. Stimuloso begins with single “Boom Josie”, which sports a strong, off-kilter vocal performance from Wei over top of a shifting musical stage—Kamikaze Nurse probably can’t boil everything they pull from in Stimuloso down to one song, but it’s a good a starting point as any.
Moments in Stimuloso like “Boom Josie” are tempered by more refined, static songs that emphasize the band’s ability to construct quality shoegaze and post-punk backbones. “P&O” rides a beautiful, steady melody over a utilitarian beat for six minutes, “Never Better” features a revved-up rhythm section punching up the simple structure at the heart of the song, and dense album centerpiece “Dead Ringers” features pretty much every aspect of Kamikaze Nurse firing on all cylinders. These shining moments are as much the “true” Kamikaze Nurse as the ones in which things go off the rails—the glorious, screeching mess that is the title track, true album outlier “Pet Meds” (in which the band combine no wave and droll spoken-word sections to let their Whitey Album appreciation fly), and “Work – Days” (in which they rip through one more quick rocker towards the end of the album). I enjoy when Stimuloso jumps from end to end, but I appreciate even more that I can enjoy both sides of their coin. (Bandcamp link)
Gabriel’s Dawn – Gabriel’s Dawn
Release date: May 30th Record label: Loose Canyon Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital Pull track: You, Your Favourite Subject
The debut record from Gabriel’s Dawn—an English four-piece group featuring members from Leicester and Newcastle-under-Lyme—is a confident record of breezy and melodic guitar pop music that is happy to reflect several points upon the lineage from which they’re drawing (the Laurel Canyon sound, the Paisley Underground, C86). Lead singer Kate Gudgin has a clean, high-in-the-mix melodic voice that’s reminiscent of clear-eyed, sober indie pop, while the music of Gabriel’s Dawn starts itself off with straightforward jangle pop and explores more dense, 60s-psychedelic-influenced textures from this jumping-off point.
Bright, pristine guitar leads and arpeggios mark almost every track on Gabriel’s Dawn—on basically every song on the first half of the record, these are both the opening and defining moments of the tracks. Gabriel’s Dawn pull no punches coming out of the gate—songs like “Loose Canyon”, “You, Your Favourite Subject”, and “We” are all satisfying pop songs in both concept and execution. Side two of Gabriel’s Dawn might be a hair less energetic, but the hooks are not lost in transition—the way that Gudgin sings the title line of “24 Hours from Heaven” is as catchy as anything else on the record, and the appropriately-titled “Gentle Chimes” ends the record with a jangle that’s no less effective for being somewhat muted. (Bandcamp link)
Soft Screams – Diet Daydream
Release date: May 27th Record label: Corrupted TV Genre: Lo-fi rock, power pop Formats: Digital Pull track: Dopamine Drain
Connor Mac is one-half of Galactic Static (which released the under-appreciated Friendly Universe late last year) and is also behind the Connecticut-based record label Corrupted TV. A few months after Friendly Universe, Corrupted TV and Mac are back with Diet Daydream, a full-length record from Mac’s solo project Soft Screams. Diet Daydream is actually a more expansive showcase than Galactic Static—while their band mostly stuck to lo-fi power pop with only hints of weird darkness underneath, Mac roams more freely with Soft Screams. At nineteen songs and fifty minutes long, it’s a bit daunting, but that’s fine—something else will stick out every time you listen.
Diet Daydream is still a lo-fi indie rock record at its core, and there’s plenty of ramshackle pop music contained therein. Single “Dopamine Dream” rivals anything on Friendly Universe in terms of pure catchy power pop, and “Train of Thought” is a show-stealing mid-tempo ballad that turns up halfway through the record. Several songs on Diet Daydream find Mac experimenting with reverby, bare-bones Martin Newell-esque transmissions, like the bass-driven “Sugarfree Sadness” and the drum machine stomp of “Life’s Different Now”. Elsewhere, the lo-fi and the darkness give a decidedly early Sebadoh edge to Diet Daydream (particularly the stretch late in the record from “The Kingdom of Punishers” to “Toxic Turn”). It always comes back to the lo-fi pop, though. Diet Daydream ends with the sleepy but jaunty acoustic-based “Return to Eggs”—whatever Mac means when they ask “Do you play God in your sleep?”, it’s quite catchy. (Bandcamp link)
Rosy Overdrive 